What Did I Do To Deserve This!
by Princess Zathura
Summary: The sequel of "But, Why Me!". Autumn is back with a new look, and a surprisingly evil alter-ego. What kind of trouble will she get herself into this time, and who will she team up with next?
1. Summer!

W00T!! This is the sequel to But, Why Me! I'm so happy! I was actually working on this before But, Why Me! was over, but it took me a long time to finish it. Also just for the heck of it, I decided to add extra emphasis to a lot of the words :D

Disclaimer: I do not own the popular Japanese anime NARUTO, or any of its related characters. -evil lawyers nod- But I DO own Autumn, and my other OCs -lawyers take out hidden tasers, and chase PZ- AHHH!! SAMMY I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO LOCK UP ALL OF THOSE TASERS!! -all of the OCs who have been tortured in the past attack- NUUUU!! SAMMY! WHY!?

* * *

It was a _normal_ summer day, but for the children of the area, it was the beginning of the end. The end of their summer vacation that is, it was Monday, and that signaled that there was only one more week until school would start again. But before summer ended there was unfinished business between some of the neighborhood kids.

"Foul!" Yelled a girl.

"No fair!" yelled a boy.

"_Very_ fair Joey, now get back in line so we can finish this already!!" The boy, Joey was a 5'6 14 year old. His light skin was covered with freckles, and his hazel eyes stood out from the rest of the boys on his team.

"No way Autumn! He hit that ball!" Autumn was a skinny teen with her somewhat short brown hair tied into a ponytail, the rest was hidden under a red white and black baseball cap that represented her school. Autumn had nearly flawless skin, except for a freckle here or there. And her eyes shone a brilliant green.

"Yeah! And it went like what? An inch?" Autumn smirked, she and Joey had been rivals since the first grade. Before summer began, he had the nerve to challenge her, and so far Autumn was winning their little feud.

"Fine we'll do it over." Joey said something to himself and went back in line. Autumn wound up and pitched the ball right over the plate, sadly for the boys it kept going over the plate and right into the fence that lined her backyard.

"Strike!" Yelled the umpire who was a girl by the name of Becky.

"Wow Joey, your team is just _full_ of winners." Autumn said rolling her eyes, as Becky threw her the ball.

"Tch, whatever Autumn. Just pitch the freakin ball," Autumn shrugged,

"Whatever suits your fancy _Princess_," Here comes the wind up, and the pitch! The ball went right over the plate!

"Strike!"

"Shayne! Hit the stupid ball for once!" Joey yelled at the batter. Once again, the wind up, and the pitch...

-**WHACK!-**

This time Shayne hit the ball, but it went straight for...Autumn! Autumn had been an athlete for most of her life, and baseball was one of her best sports, instead of cowering in fear of getting hit by the ball, (like most of the other girls) she just put up her glove and and braced herself to catch the ball. Right before the ball could hit her though, something else caught it...

"OUT!" Becky yelled as the dust started to clear. Autumn stepped back in surprise. In all of her previous adventures this was one character she had never had the extreme misfortune to meet (although she was close)...

(I'll give you a minute to think about it... Ya done yet? I'll give it to ya anyway.)

It was the one and only survivor of the Uchiha massacre... Uchiha Sasuke (Shippuden)

(Thankfully) Apparently everyone else thought that the game was more important then some chicken-ass hair anime character appearing in front of them.

"What!" Joey yelled at the umpire (who also happened to be the catcher). "HOW THE HECK IS THAT A STRIKE! THAT WAS INTERFERENCE!" Autumn sighed, once this kid got started, there was no stopping him.

"Let it go Joey..." Autumn said stepping out from behind Sasuke, who was waiting patiently still holding the ball.

"HOW CAN I LET IT GO! MY TEAM IS SO CLOSE TO WINNING!"

"..." There was silence and then something else happened. Suigetsu, Juugo, and Karin jumped off of the roof, joining Sasuke, and almost squishing Autumn.

"Is something wrong Sasuke-kun?" Karin asked almost **running over** Autumn to go over to him. He just threw the ball in her face.

"..." There was more silence before Autumn walked in front of them so she could be heard.

"Joey... You might want to re-think that..."

"WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!?" Jill, another one of the girls on Autumn's team, and also one of her good friends, walked away from her position at second base and over to where the real action was.

"IT MEANS THAT WE'RE AT THE TOP OF THE NINTH AND YOUR TEAM IS _LOSING_ BY **19 POINTS**!" She yelled in Joey's face.

"...Well yeah, but I was trying to be nice about it... Thanks!" Autumn said to her friend as she walked back to her position.

"No prob. Fall!" Meanwhile Joey had officially given up on the matter since he was out numbered, and his team was obviously not going to back him up.

"Umm... Why is everyone staring at me?" Autumn asked. Everyone especially team Hebi (still right behind her) was staring.

"It's your call..." Joey started. "Is he in or out?" Autumn looked shocked for a second and then thought it over.

"Well I guess..." Autumn suddenly smirked. " I guess then he's... **OUT**!" Team Hebi just looked about as the children switched sides.

"Right, could you people like, get off the field?" Sasuke blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Would you **PLEASE** moveso we can finish our game?" Sasuke just blinked again and walked over to the deck and sat there, waiting.

"Well that works... Okay then!" she said turning back to her team.

"LET'S PLAY BALL!" Autumn turned once more and threw the ball at Joey, who barely caught it before it hit his face.

"Good luck!" she said happily running to her spot in the batting line.

* * *

"Okay! Chi-Chi, you're up! Kay, you're on deck! And... wait a second!" Autumn was looking at the batting order, something wasn't right.

"Oh, what's wrong Autumn? You've **just** found out that you actually _have _to bat?" Joey called, taunting her. Truthfully it was. Before, she had the batting order set up so that she would go only a few times in the whole game, but now... Someone must have changed it...

"Aw don't listen to 'im!"Another girl, May said.

"Maybe I wouldn't if _someone_ actually decided to **play**. Although I'm not mentioning any names... _**May**_?" she responded, said girl just shrugged. May, even though she was usually more hyper than a chipmunk on caffeine, she never played sports. She loved watching sports, talking about sports, and listening to sports, but she'll never play one.

"Now that part, is _soooo_ not my problem."

"You're just so helpful, ya know that? Just _so_ helpful!"

"I'm doing my best here!" Autumn rolled her eyes once more, and took her new place in the quickly moving batting line. Chi-Chi had already gone, meaning that Kay was up, and she was on deck. Autumn picked up a helmet, and picked up her favorite bat. It was a long red metal bat with the words "Louisville Slugger" on the side in white letters. Her father had gotten this bat for her when she joined her first softball team, four years ago. It was too small for her now, but that had never stopped her from using it. (It just made her start wearing gloves)

Autumn watched as Kay got ready to bat. Crossing her fingers Autumn prayed that she would hit it. Kay had never been very good at sports, but she played them anyway. Last summer Autumn had played a game of baseball, just for fun with her. Every time she pitched the ball it either hit her in the face, or caused harm to other places on her body, and when she was up to bat, the ball and the bat itself seemed to have opposing magnets in them. The bat would never actually hit the ball. As Kay got into position, Autumn closed her eyes, she couldn't watch!

Suddenly, after a few moments of silence,

**-WHACK!!-**

Autumn opened her eyes, hoping that, that sound wasn't a bone snapping. But wait... She couldn't have... She did! Kay actually **hit** the ball! Apparently everyone else was shocked too, because Kay had made it all the way to third base already, and no one seemed to notice, they just kept looking at the ball. The ball had landed by a random tree in the yard, but no one wanted to touch it, they thought that it might have some kind of mystic power or it was jinxed or something...

"Go Kay!!" Autumn shouted, causing everyone to snap out of their little daze. Kay was five centimeters from home plate by the time that they noticed.

"NO FAIR SHE HAS GOT TO BE **CHEATING**!!" Joey yelled walking over to Autumn, who was getting ready for her turn at bat. She sighed, _'Here we go again'_.

"Now just how did you come to that conclusion, Oh Smart One?" Joey glared at her.

"There is no _possible_ way that, THAT _girl _could ever hit a ball! I mean, it's **Kay** we're talking about!" He said, motioning toward said girl.

"Well _obviously_ she _just **did**_, so just buzz off!" Autumn pushed him back with the tip of her bat. Joey walked back to the pitcher's mound, but as he did the little emo cloud that had been hovering over Sasuke's head seemed to break in half and float over to Joey. Autumn smirked, apparently that had taken a big chunk out of his ego, and the fact that the emo cloud was starting to rain wasn't helping it either.

"Wow... Deja vu..." Autumn said as she watched Joey go sit in a random corner of her yard and start to grow mushrooms.

(Ouran High School Host Club)

"Do ya think someone should try and cheer him up?" Kay asked, walking over to Autumn.

"Nah! He puts us down almost every other day of the week, he can live with losing most (if not all) of his pride."

"But... What if we... Took it a bit... **_Too_**, far?" She asked, motioning to the emo cloud, and the big neon sign with an arrow that said "Joey's Emo Corner".

"Good point, so is anyone actually going to volunteer?" No one moved. Autumn let out a sigh, they weren't going to be able to finish their game without a pitcher, and she wasn't going to be able to pitch for herself.

"Let's have Kay do it then."

"WHAT!?" She yelled, causing Autumn to have to rub her ears, just to make sure that they weren't bleeding.

"It was your _lovely _idea to try to cheer up an emo kid today, so I think you should be the one to do it." She said, searching through one of her bags of random junk.

"Here," Autumn handed Kay a happy looking teddy bear. "It should protect you from his emo powers of angst and... emoness," Kay glared at the bear as if it's head was going to fly off any second.

"OH NO! THE ANGSTYNESS IS SPREADING!" Autumn said, snatching back the bear, and attacking Kay with it.

"Mister Bear! Please hug our friend and save her from living a life of emoness!" May said coming up behind Autumn. To Sasuke and the rest of Team Hebi it looked like a fight had broken out, and the bear was the cause of it.

"Kay! Kay! Speak to us! Say something happy and optimistic!" Autumn shouted holding Kay's hand, because she had fainted from getting the angst sucked out of her by the bear.

"I think I got chocolate on my phone..."

"SHE'S ALIVE!" Autumn shouted grabbing the bear. The teddy bear had the power to suck angst out of people, and recycle it into positive energy. Autumn stood on the pitcher's mound, she didn't want to get too close. She pitched the bear at Joey, hoping to get him out of his little emo mood. The bear hit him in the back, but was deflected by the emo cloud.

"NUUUU!!" The Autumn watched in horror as the emoness from the cloud attached itself onto the bear.

"No look Autumn you did it!" Autumn's eyes went from the now very emo looking bear, to Joey. He was dusting himself off, and was getting ready to pitch. At least something worked out.

"Hey Autumn! You just gonna stand there and gawk all day? I actually want to get this game over with before the sun goes down!" he yelled, getting back on the pitcher's mound. Autumn took one last sad look at the bear before she took her bat and got ready. As Joey wound up, May yelled out into the field,

"WAIT!!"

"What?"

"Please allow us to have a moment of silence for our brave soldier, the warrior against all things emo, Mister Bear..."

-Moment of silence-

"Okay, PLAY BALL!!" And with that Autumn went back to concentrating on hitting the ball, she had to think like she did during her training, she had think as she did during sword training. She had to become one with the bat...

"STRIKE!!"

"Hey no fair! I wasn't ready yet!"

"Gee Autumn, I thought you were a pro!" Joey yelled, laughing.

"Shut up!" Okay, screw training. Just concentrate...

-WHACK!!-

Autumn hit the ball right out of her backyard! She took off running,

"HOME RUN!!" And just like that she made it back to home without a second thought.

"Face it Joey, we're going to win!" Autumn shouted over to the pitcher, Joey just mumbled something incoherent in response.

* * *

In the end, Autumn's team did win the game 26-2, but Joey was very competitive, he wasn't going to give up just yet. Joey walked off of the pitcher's mound, and straight over to Autumn.

"Have you come to admit your absolute defeat?" She asked smiling cockily. Joey looked at her seriously,

"I challenge you to... A game." Autumn raised her eyebrow,

"Of what?"

"Of... DDR!" (Dun Dun DUNNNNNN!!)

"Heh, if that's all then I accept your petty little challenge!" Autumn said imitating a villain, and cackling evilly. Joey just gave her a 'WTF' look, and everyone else seemed to back away slowly. Sasuke's ears perked up at the sound of evil laughter, that sounded strangely like Orochimaru's, and with his ninja speed, he was in front of Autumn holding his katana to her throat. Now it was Autumn's turn to give the 'WTF' look, she turned to Sasuke,

"What?" she asked obviously confused. In Sasuke's opinion, she was either Orochimaru in disguise, or Kabuto.

"Don't play the fool shoujo," he said sternly, activating his sharingan. Autumn avoided his gaze, and carefully pushed his katana away from her neck.

"Could you_ please _not call me that?" She said in her evil/sweet voice. "I don't enjoy being called a _'little girl'_ in _**any**_language," Sasuke slashed his katana in the direction of her neck, causing everyone to gasp. Luckily for her, her training in the past had worn off. With her quick reflexes, Autumn managed to duck before she got decapitated.

"Anger management issues much?" she asked sarcastically, Sasuke didn't respond, instead he brought his katana down on her. Autumn rolled to the side, the katana missing her only by a hair.

"That could have hurt, a lot, and I am sooooo not going through that again!" (Kudos to you, if you know what she's talking about.) The rest of Team Hebi walked over to where everyone was standing, and Karin glared intensely at poor Autumn, who was rolling on the ground, trying to avoid getting stabbed by Sasuke. (Just like Lee did with Kimmimaru.)

"Would you mind not trying to kill me for a minute or two?" She rolled behind May, and stood back up.

"Now what is it that you want so much, that you'll kill an innocent little girl just like a heartless common criminal?" She asked, openly referring to Itachi. (He's awesome, but he killed his whole family! Plus I doing this prior to chapter 390) Sasuke glared at her, but backed off.

"See? Now was that so hard?" Autumn bounced out from behind May, and into Sasuke's face.

"So, what can I do ya for?" He just briefly looked clueless in response.

"It means what the heck do ya want!?"

"You should know..." now it was Autumn's turn to look clueless.

"Kabuto. I knew I should have killed you when I had the chance! But hear this I won't make the same mistake again! DIE!!" Grabbing a kunai from god-knows-where, Sasuke slashed where Autumn's neck should have been, but she dodged. Repeating the same dance as earlier, Autumn dodged all of his attacks. He was a lot easier to avoid than Itachi!

"Please tell me that you're done!" she said fanning herself with her hand. It was hot, and doing all of this wasn't good for her health. Sasuke glared at her.

"What are you doing here Kabuto?"

"For God's sake! Read my lips: I. Am. **NOT**. Kabuto!" Autumn went up to Sasuke and poked him in the forehead, just like Itachi used to.

"Who are you?" he whispered. Autumn just smiled, as she had learned in the past, messing with anime characters, (especially the emo ones) could be fun if you knew how to push their buttons.

"I. Am..."

"Crazy?" May ended. Autumn turned and glared at her friend who just shrugged.

"No... I'm," Dramatic pause,

"Your worst nightmare..." she said lowering the tone of her voice so that it was more of a stage whisper. Sasuke didn't believe this, but he had to admit, this girl was a bit creepy. May rolled her eyes, and went to stand by her friend.

"Who is this freak anyway?" she asked, closing her book.

"Trust me, you don't want to know,"

* * *

**After hours and hours of persuasion...**

Autumn finally got Sasuke to stop trying to kill her, but she wasn't so sure about Karin. She had been glaring at the back of Autumn's head for the past few hours, even after Sasuke had told her to stop. Joey and the others had gone home with hopes that they wouldn't have to deal with it, but before he left, Joey gave Autumn the date and time of their DDR battle. Sadly for her she didn't trust Team Hebi enough, so she would have to take them with her. Until then, she could just lock them in the basement, or put up a jutsu around the other floors. It didn't matter really. After the akatsuki left her house last time, she had collected all of their stuff, and moved it to her room. A few scrolls, some kunai, a shurikin here and there. But one thing that she remembered the most was going through Tobi's room. Somehow when she slept people away, everything besides their persons is left behind. In Tobi's room she found, A piece of gum, a paperclip, her iPod, her laptop a comb, her mother's glasses, the TV remote, Becky's lost earring, paper, a pencil, some stolen rolexes, some weird looking grayish powder(1), a mango, her mother's hat, and some less important things. Point was that Tobi had some serious issues. But at the moment, she just hoped that Sasuke didn't go all ninja on her in her sleep.

Team Hebi was currently watching Autumn read a book. She had tried to start a conversation, that didn't work. She had tried walking away, Sasuke followed her. She had even tried using a clone so she could get away, he killed it, and followed her anyway. And of course where ever he went, the rest of team hebi was sure to follow. So now she was in the library, reading a book, the anime, and the scrolls were locked up in the back, and Sasuke, and Karin were glaring at the back of her head, both thinking of different ways to **torture**, and **kill**.

"Would you two mind not glaring at me? It's getting annoying, and I'm under enough pressure!" she said, turning, and giving them a glare of her own. Karin looked away, but Sasuke seemed unfazed. She was using her "_modified_" version of Itachi's glare, only this time, she didn't activate her sharingan.

"I don't trust you," he said, looking her straight in the eyes,

"You shouldn't," Autumn replied, annoyed at the fact that one of the people that she hated the most was going to be living with her until next month. Before they left last time, Pein had Itachi teach her the jutsu that allowed them to move between different dimensions. They weren't so sure about it at first, but when it became apparent that the appearances, and disappearances when the gate opened were caused by her odd sleeping patterns, and her high chakra levels, They decided to teach her, just in case it happened again. If something were being sent to the "anime world" then the jutsu had to be preformed on the night of the new moon. If something were being summoned to the "normal world" then the jutsu had to be activated on the night of the full moon. Sadly for her though, the new moon had just passed, meaning that she either had to wait until next month when the new moon would come again, or she could take a flight to the other side of the moon, somewhere on Mars, and do it there. Well the second option was sure as heck not going to happen. So she was stuck with them. But of course there was always a third option, she could try falling asleep and hope that they would disappear, but that usually meant that there would be an exchange. If Team Hebi went away, she could end up with the akatsuki, the Konoha shinobi, or the idiots from sound living with her again. And she definitely didn't want that. Also since her sleeping patterns and the appearances were unusual, there was a high chance that someone she had never met before would appear, much like Sasuke did. She just hoped it wasn't the akatsuki again. She was still mad at them for what they made her do to May. It was a good thing she had learned to bring the dead back to life, but of course that brought back extremely bad memories.

"If you ask me-!" Karen started,

"Well it's a good thing that no one asked you now isn't it?" Autumn said, rolling her eyes. With that smart remark, Suigetsu broke out laughing.

"Now that we've had our two minutes worth of entertainment, I have a question," She said, looking at Sasuke.

"Why are you freaks here anyway?"

"HOW DARE-!"

"Shut up!"

"Why are you here?" Sasuke asked, causing Autumn to sigh,

"I live here! What are ya, stupid?"

"Hey! Don't you-!"

"Shut up!"

"We're here because I heard a rumor of Itachi-"

"What? Him, here? No. I don't allow people who would attempt to murder me in my home!"

" You know who he is?"

"... Yes," Sasuke grabbed her,

"How?!"

"Take a guess Chicken Ass! You'll probably get it right!"

"You little-!"

"Shut up already! haven't you learned yet that no one wants to hear your mouth!"

"HOW DO YOU KNOW ITACHI!!"

"SHUT UP!!"

"YOU CAN'T TELL SASUKE-"

"GET A LIFE!!"

"AS IF!"

"WHERE IS HE!?"

"WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO-"

"UGH! THAT'S IT!!" Suddenly everyone went silent as Karin's body dropped to the floor. In an instant Autumn found herself pinned to the ground with Sasuke's katana against her throat. Sharingan glaring into sharingan.

"...Itachi..."

"Guess again, Pretty Boy!" Autumn yelled, flipping Sasuke off of her. Juugo, and Suigetsu got into fighting positions.

"Oh, come on! Three against one is so not fair... For you!"

"DON'T LOOK INTO HER EYES!!" Sasuke yelled, but it was too late, Suigetsu, and Juugo both hit the floor with a dull "Thud".

"Who are you?" Sasuke asked, glaring at her.

"Who am I indeed, I am your past, your present, and your future. Everything that has happened, I have seen it, everything that will happen, I've seen it. I have seen, and memorized everything that you have done in the past, and what you will do in the future!"

"..."

"In one year, you will kill Itachi, and then there will be only two Uchihas left in your world. After you kill him, you will learn the truth about your family, and everything around you. Your thirst for revenge won't be satisfied. You will hate yourself, and force yourself over the edge. I hate you Uchiha Sasuke. I hate you for taking lives for your own selfish purposes. I hate you for killing people that I care about. I hate you for hurting my friends... And I hate myself because I know that there is nothing that I can do about it... It's all history here... And history must run it's course... Aniki would be mad if I changed it..." Autumn who was crying started to laugh, "To tell the truth, he'd be mad at me for just telling you all of this, but it'll be our little secret okay?" she said, mimicking a little child, holding her finger to her lips.

"Who are you?" She stood up straight, and smirked as she stated proudly,

"I am the adopted daughter of the fearless akatsuki leader Pein! I am an official member, and I'm one of the most powerful too, I have traits and abilities from each and every one of the members, making me a deadly weapon. Just as all shinobi are. I am the elemental countries past, present, and future. I am the youth of tomorrow, but as for my name, my birth name is "Autumn"... Do you want me to keep going with the intro, or did you finally get the point after the _fifteenth_ time that I've had to **re**-introduce myself today?" Sasuke glared at her. "'Cause this is one of my better intros, but it's kinda long..."

"...Hn,"

"I'll take that as a 'yes', but just to be safe," Autumn skipped over to where he was standing, "Let's review. Who am I?"

"..."

"Okay, too hard. How about this, What is my name?"

"...Hn,"

"You're hopeless, think about what I said, okay?" She finished, walking away. This time Sasuke let her go. After she left, Sasuke paced around the room a few times. He knew damn well who she was. She was that one girl that Orochimaru was going to have take his place. It was hard to believe at first, since she seemed not to have any mental damage, but after she revealed her sharingan, it was apparent that she was the one. He could tell that most of the things she had done to him so far were on purpose, so she could get under his skin. Eventually, he was going to do the same to her. Who said the antagonist couldn't have fun?

* * *

Finally making it up to her room, Autumn plopped down on the bed. He was sooooooo going to kill her later. Grabbing her skateboard, she skated over to the other side of her room. (Yes it is that big) In her desk on this side, was were she kept the scrolls. Finding the one she was looking for, she set it on the floor. It was a summoning scroll. She summoned Cleopatra, a snake who had helped her in the past, just for the heck of it. She really needed someone to talk to, and she sure as heck wasn't going to talk to the idiots down stairs. Not to mention that three of them were in the middle of 72 hours of hell, and the one that was awake was EXTREMELY antisocial. Plus Autumn was sure that she had pissed him off enough already. Besides, Cleo was special. She wasn't just any snake, she had been there for Autumn like a parent would. She laughed when she was happy, she cried when she almost died. (Courtesy of a certain Weasel-man Uchiha) She was like her best friend. Of course there was the small fact that the akatsuki did make her kill her best friend, but that wasn't important at the moment. (really)

"Aauuutuummmn?" came a hiss out of the smoke. In the middle of the floor sat a snake, with golden/green scales, and slited eyes.

"Hey Cleo," Confirming the identity of her friend, Cleo rose up to full height, and shifted into the figure of a woman.

"Where have you beeen?" even though she looked human at the moment, she still had that hissing problem.

"Busy. We have more company." Autumn stated,

"Reeeaaaally? Hm, anyone I know?"

"At least one of them, you should,"

"How interesting," Cleo who was wearing a green/gold kimono like her scales, stood up, and streached.

"I take it you want to see them?" Autumn sighed,

"Ooh, Aautuummn, you know meee all too weeell,"

"The reason I came up here was to get away from those idiots, plus they should be waking up right about now, my Mangekou isn't that powerful yet,"

"Morrre of a goood reeeaassson to go down there," Autumn sighed again,

"Fine, but you have to change again first," Cleo nodded, and turned herself into a kitten,

"For someone who's supposed to be ancient, you act just like a little child,"

"Isss that a prrroblem?" she asked, rolling over onto her back.

"Okay, now you're just trying to be cute," Cleo licked Autumn's hand as she bent down to pick her up.

"Issss iit worrking?"

"Yep!" That brought a smile to both of their faces. One that would hopefully encourage them to make the long journey all that way back down to the library. (It's only what, 4 floors away?)

Autumn took Cleo over to the staircase in the back. She rarely ever used this one because the ones in the front were so much more convenient, and a lot bigger. The back staircases, Autumn was sure, were servants staircases before Orochimaru moved in. This one went through the wall and down a deep tunnel. It had a small door that led to every floor, but besides that, there was nothing. No lights, no wallpaper, not even a handrail! Not like she needed one anyway. The passage was narrow enough that she didn't need it.

"Why can't you walk down here your self?" Autumn asked, stumbling in the darkness, "I bet it would save me a whole lot of trouble,"

"Nnoow wherrre iss the fuun in thaaat?"

"For you, none. For me, plenty."

"Oh rrreally?"

"Yes really,"

"How?"

"Well, in my case, watching you in your kitten form attempting to climb down theses steep stairs without my help would be more then funny," This conversation lasted for a couple more minutes, and as their voices echoed throughout the spiral passageway, a few extra ears listened, and waited in silence for the time to come to get their revenge.

* * *

"Do youuu have the feeeeling that we're being watched?" Cleo purred,

"Huh? Oh, those idiots' chakra signatures were so weak that I nearly forgot about them," Autumn said, finally coming to the door, and stepping out into the light. Suigetsu, Karen, and Juugo, who had all been listening against the wall, anime fell right into the opening door, which caused them to fall unconscious. Seeing their bodies on the floor, both Autumn, and Cleo sweatdropped. These were supposed to be powerful, and threatening ninja from another universe? I don't think so.

"Are they okay?" Autumn asked as she let Cleo down to inspect the scene.

"Theyy'lll bee fiiine," she said, morphing back into a woman.

"That... That is just sad." Cleo just nodded in agreement.

"What did you do to them?" Sasuke asked as he came into the room. "Who is this?" he motioned to Cleo.

"One, nothing, you little pose was knocked out by the door opening. Two, this is Cleopatra. You should know her already."

"Cleopatra?"

"The one and only, baka... OW!" that little phrase had earned Autumn a smack to the head. Even though she had become a bit more lenient, Cleo still couldn't tolerate impoliteness. Sasuke just nodded, it was hard to believe at first, but that little display was enough proof.

"Was that really nessesary?" Autumn asked, rubbing the sore spot.

"It got him to believe us didn't it?"

"What's your point!?"

"So you two know each other?"

"No, we just met five seconds ago, nice to meet you Cleo, what's your name?" She hit her again.

"Will you stop that!!"

"I would if you wouldn't provoke me!"

"HOW AM I PROVOKING YOU?!" She got hit again,

"DON'T RAISE YOUR VOICE TO ME!!"

"SHUT UP!" at this point, Cleo was beyond pissed, so she started a full blown cat fight.

"Could you two not fight at this possible moment?" Sasuke asked, wanting answers.

"I'll stop when she decides to get a life!"

"You should learn to respect you elders!"

"You act younger than me!"

"And who's fault is that?"

"... I really don't know..."

"Neither do I,"

"... well this is awkward.."

"Yep..."

"Sooooooooo... friends?"

"Alwaysssss," Sasuke stared at the two. One minute they had been fighting, and now they had just announced their friendship to the world... And it was and that exact moment that Sasuke finally threw his "Autumn being Kabuto" idea out the window. There was absolutely no way those two were even related! He knew that Kabuto was mad, but not insane. (I'd prefer it the other way around)

"Cleopatra..."

"Yesss?"

"Tell me... Where is Itachi?"

"I cannot say..."

"Please... I need to know!"

"Hate to interrupt, but you two need to end this conversation so I can go shopping for the school year,"

"Sssshouldn't youuu haaave dooone thaaat eaarlier?"

"... Maybe... but I didn't, so LET'S GO!!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... Aaautumnn... You do realisssse that it issss passsst four in the afternoon?"

"Yeah, so?" Cleo sighed, and Sasuke and Autumn stood there looking confused. Then it clicked.

"... Oh..." After four it was almost impossible to get to the other side of town because the tunnels started being patrolled last year after the akatsuki had forced her to murder May.

"That sucks..." Cleo hit her again,

"What did I do that time!?"

"Language precision,"

"I 'dislike' you,"

"That's nice." Sasuke kept staring and twitched a few times, these people were insane.

"I heard that," Autumn sang, that was another plus from her new eyes. She could read thoughts by reading movements! A lot like Neji does with the byakugan! (Neji is awesome!)

"I'm bored,"

"Hn,"

"I wasn't talking to you Emo Boy!" Sasuke waited to hear the sound of Cleo smacking Autumn, but it didn't come. He turned around, and raised an eyebrow at what he saw,

"Do I want to know?" Cleo had doubled over, and was trying hard not to laugh.

"No you don't," Autumn said, rolling her eyes. She took one last look at the emo boy, and his emo cloud, and left.

Even as she walked away, she could still hear the beginning of Cleo's continuous laughter. For a 'snake', she had pretty nice vocal chords.

* * *

Woo Hoo!! Over six-thousand, five-hundred-fifty words!! Isn't that awesome? Cleo's back, and Autumn finally gets to meet Sasuke! Did anyone besides me see how Sasuke kept making Autumn introduce herself? He should have gotten it the first time. Yeah, I'm starting to confuse myself, this skips around to random parts of the timeline, so at the moment, this is right after team Hebi is formed, and as I stated in the last story, everyone is alive at the moment. If you have any questions so far, please feel free to PM me about it.

(1) Crack, pot, dope, weed, marijuana, even tobacco. It's drugs.


	2. Betrayed

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

* * *

-BOOM!!-

"AHHH! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU CRAZY PSYCHO BITCH!"

"HOW DARE YOU MAKE FUN OF MY SASUKE!!"

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!"

**-CRASH!!-**

"WHY I OUTTA-"

"CLEO! STOP WATCHING, AND HEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPP MMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"

**-BAM!!-**

"Oh, I'm soooo sorry Sasuke-kun! Please forgive me! That little **demon **did something terrible to me!"

"Uh-huh, if that's the way that you're going to act, then you can get the hell out of my house!"

"...Hn."

"... what, the hell is going on here?" Suigetsu asked. Earlier that morning, Karin had caught Autumn in her room looking at fanart. She was looking at this one picture of Sasuke's hair, being compared to a cockatoo. After that, Autumn made a remark of how true it was, and something about him and Sakura, and that set her off.

"I'm innocent." Autumn stated, quickly.

"Ha! You little beast, you attempted to defile my Sasuke!" Did I forget to mention, that Autumn may have activated a paint program, and drew all over Sasuke's face. As if that wasn't enough, right before Karin started to go crazy, she had gotten a sharpie, and attempted to recreate it on the real Sasuke's face.

"... _'your' _Sasuke? I never knew you two were a couple!" She teased. Sasuke glared at both of them.

"Heh, you should know by now, your glare doesn't affect me!" Autumn sang.

"What's with all the noise this early in the morning?" Juugo asked, oblivious of the fast growing rivalry growing between the two main female occupants of the room, and the laughing snake.

"Oh, nothing, just go back to... Whatever." Autumn said, backing up toward the staircase. As soon as she got there, she gave a small wave, and slid down the rail, to the first floor. (They were on the second floor)

"Where do you think you're going?"

"I still have a DDR tournament with Joey later, and I decided to go practice. Plus, I just want to go shopping. C'mon Cleo!" Said snake (still in human form) hurried down the stairs, and out the door.

"Later losers!" Autumn yelled, as Cleo closed the door behind her.

* * *

"Was that really necessary?" Cleo asked, once they were outside.

"No, but I had to say _something _to piss them off."

"..."

"..."

"That's not nice."

"LOOK WHO'S TALKING!! YOU JUST SAT THERE LAUGHING WHILE I GOT CHASED BY THE 'CRAZY PSYCHO BITCH'!!" Cleo smiled.

"Your point?"

"MY POINT!? MY POINT IS THAT WHILE I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GET KILLED, YOU WERE JUST SITTING THERE, LAUGHING LIKE A MANIAC!!"

"Yeah, and?"

"... IT WASN'T FUNNY!!"

"Maybe not to you, but to me, it was hilarious."

"How can you say that so calmly?"

"Trust me, dearest. When you live as long as I have, you learn to hold back."

"...That's nice... So how come you couldn't "hold back" while I was being _brutally _attacked?"

"..."

"Exactly." Cleo just shrugged it off, and walked past Autumn.

The two walked all the way to the mall, where they took their time, not wanting to think of what the house would look like when they got back...

* * *

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!!"

"HOW DO YOU 'ACCIDENTLY' ATTEMPT TO BREAK MY DOOR DOWN AND TRY TO RAID MY ROOM!?"

"..."

"SEE!!" If you're wondering what is going on here, then I'll explain to it to you.

* * *

**_Flashback..._**

_"Hello?" Autumn called, walking through the door. No one answered._

_"Maybe they've all fallen asleep?" Cleo suggested, as Autumn started to frantically look around and panic._

_"Or they've all simultaneously dropped dead."_

_" I doubt that." _

_"My point exactly." Autumn dropped her multiple shopping bags on the ground and proceeded to jump up the stairs using her previously learned ninja skills. As soon as she reached the top though, she wasn't prepared for what she was about to witness. Under Karin's direction and Sasuke's supervision, Suigetsu and Juugo were attempting to smash her bedroom door, the door that led to the 7th floor open._

_"What the ... HELL!?" She screamed as the door finally gave way. Sasuke just turned his head,_

_"Her idea." He said, motioning to Karin. "She said that you were holding information on my brother in there." Autumn screamed and ran at Karin._

**_End Flashback..._**

* * *

And that brings us back to now. At this point, Autumn had gotten far enough as to get a kunai to Karin's throat, but no farther before Suigetsu and Juugo restrained her.

"LET GO OF ME DAMMIT!!" She screamed, attempting to lunge at Karin. Sadly for her, Suigetsu and Juugo kept a strong grip on her.

"What happened this time?" Cleo asked, walking up the stairs, shopping bags in tow.

"Karin wanted to raid her room." Sasuke answered, smirking at the scene before him.

"CLEO!! DO **SOMETHING**!" Cleo sighed and walked over to where Autumn was kicking and screaming.

"Aki-chan." Cleo purred, grabbing said girl's attention. As Autumn turned her head, Cleo poked her in between the eyes. At first it seemed to have no apparent effect, but then the girl slowly stopped struggling and her body fell limp. Cleo looked at her feet and turned around.

"I did as you asked, Uchiha-sama." She spoke quietly.

"Hn," Sasuke nodded. "Tie her to the bed and we can start the probing process." He directed. Cleo nodded and motioned for Suigetsu and Juugo to follow her into Autumn's room on the seventh floor. Karin smirked as she watched the girl's body being dragged away,

"I'll retrieve the scroll from the library." She stated, walking back down to the third floor. Sasuke watched as she left, deep in thought. This was payback for making him number 2. When he was with Orochimaru, this girl was all he would talk about. After she arrived, he made no progress in training what so ever, so he was going to return the favor. He was going to do what Kabuto had failed at. First, he was going to probe her mind. A process that dug through memories for information. It was used mainly by medical ninjas during interrogations, but Karin was an expert at it. After he found the location of his brother, then he was going to control the seal on the girl's neck and use is as a battery, feeding him her chakra. He knew that Kabuto had attempted something similar, but this one, she wasn't going to break so easily. This time, Cleo was on his side and with no one to help her... Autumn was doomed.

* * *

**Hehe... Cleo's working for Sasuke now! I know I'm evil. In other news, I'm back in school, and it SUCKS as usual. I have writer's block, and... I really don't know what to say... Oh well, Please Review!**


	3. Stage Two

**_Disclaimer: I don't own._**

* * *

Autumn stared blankly at the ceiling, vaguely aware of where she was.

"_Have you found anything yet?" _She heard a male voice in the background. She couldn't move. Nor could she see very well. Her vision was blurred and her hearing was dull. She couldn't remember what it was she had done, but whatever Cleo did to her seemed to have paralyzed her body and nullified her senses. She couldn't even think straight!

_"Not yet," _a more feminine voice responded. Slowly, Autumn became more aware of her surroundings as Cleo's jutsu started to ware off. Soon, she noticed that there was an alien presence in her mind.

_What is she thinking about, then?" _Asked another male voice, different from the first.

_'I've been paralyzed for the past hour, so obviously NOTHING… Dumbasses _She thought. As soon as that finished though, she felt a sharp pain in her head, as if she were being struck.

"OW!!" She yelped in pain, snapping out of her paralysis. She was now able to see and think clearly, but sadly for her, the first thing she was Karin's angry face!

"Karin." Sasuke warned.

"Gomenasi, Sasuke-kun." She said, attempting to pout cutely. Aututmn began to feel the presence in her head a lot clearer than she had before.

"What… The… HELL are you people doing to me!?" She let out a long piercing scream as Karin dug her (recently filed) nails into her scalp and started an even more elaborate search than the one prior to it.

Cleo stood in the back, watching in silent terror at what was being done to her charge. Autumn's struggling limbs were tied to the bed by Sasuke's chakra strings and according to what she had been informed of, Sasuke had been taught to control the cursed seal on Autumn's neck and was using it to suppress her chakra.

"LET GO OF ME!!" Autumn yelled,

"Hurry up Karin!" Sasuke commanded. "I won't be able to hold her like this much longer!" Cleo cringed as Autumn let out another ear piercing scream.

"S-Sasuke-sama, must you do this, you're hurting her!" Sasuke turned, not moving his hand from its place on the girl's neck. His seal was activated, as was hers, but unlike Autumn, his sharingan eyes were hard and cold. As he faced her, Cleo couldn't help but back away.

"You know something of my brother as well, do you not? As I asked you earlier, would you rather be in her place? And before you answer, I want you to think carefully about what you're just about to say." He stated, allowing his chakra to solidify around the hand pressed to Autumn's bare neck. Cleo stared at him long and hard, but slowly, she began to nod her head.

"So be it," he said, the chakra dissipating. "Karin," She looked up, "Let her go."

"But why? I'm getting closer! The true information hidden under her thoughts are all deep inside her subconscious." She informed him.

"Karin," he glared at her. This time, she didn't bother questioning his judgment and released the girl's head. Cleo flinched as she caught a glance of Karin's crimson stained hands.

Autumn relaxed a bit but stiffened again as her body started to squirm under Sasuke's remaining grip.

"Tell me where Itachi is, and I'll spare you the pain of mind probing." Cleo stared at him in shock, but spoke up bravely.

"Not until after you let her go…" Surprisingly, he agreed. He deactivated his seal and removed his hand from her neck. Immediately, Autumn began to scream and the seal on her body began to burn her skin.

"What's happening to her!?" Cleo yelled, not bearing to look at her charge.

"I was holding her chakra by controlling the seal. Since her body is used to high chakra levels it automatically created more to replace the suppressed chakra."

"Her chakra's causing this!?" Sasuke shook his head,

"When the cursed seal is active, it adds chakra and consumes the host's chakra in order to take over. In order to keep it from taking over completely, I had to inject some of my own chakra."

"I don't care WHAT is causing it, I just want you to make it STOP!" She shouted as Autumn's screams of pain became louder and shriller. She turned from Sasuke and strained to keep herself from screaming as she watched the cursed seal almost completely engulf the body of her friend.

"Do SOMETHING!!" Sasuke shook his head once again,

"Where is Itachi?"

"WHY DO YOU CARE!? FORGET HIM AND HELP HER!!"

"Where?"

"SHE'S DYING!"

"Where?" He insisted.

"AT THEIR HIDEOUT! NOW HELP HER!" Sasuke jabbed his fingers into Autumn's neck where the seal originated. She squealed for a second, but that tiny action was enough to calm her down. It was enough for Cleo as well until she noticed something,

"The seal is still spreading!" No one moved. Autumn was breathing heavily, and couldn't move and inch.

"Cleo…" She panted before the seal completely consumed her body. For a moment all eyes were on her. The tension around them was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. Autumn closed her eyes for a moment as her heart stopped. As soon as her breathing stopped, the same went for all of the other occupants of the room. Cleo knew what was coming next. The same that happened every time that this special girl's eyes closed. Cleo spared a sad glance at the 'sleeping child', and waited until the light came and she was returned to her original world before dis-summoning herself. A second later, all which was left in the room, was a quiet, happy little girl. Her pale skin accented her bright green eyes and her bright red hair was down and neat, giving her the appearance and air of a little child.

* * *

**_Umm.. Yeah, that's about it. I've been in school for 13 DAYS and already they're giving us mountain loads of homework, giving me less and less time to work on this... Well I hope you enjoy, the next chapter should be out soon!_**


	4. Torture, Victim 1: Kisame

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

* * *

Red eyes opened, piercing the darkness that was the basement of the Fairbrook Estate. As their owner walked along he walls lined with weapons, he joined a group of similarly dressed 'people', clustering around the exit.

"We've returned earlier than expected," spoke their apparent leader. "But, I suppose it can't be helped. _She_'s the one who has summoned us after all."

"Maybe she missed us," A pair of violet eyes suggested, silver hair glinting in the soft moonlight that fell upon it through a small window.

"Maybe, but I doubt that, un."

"After last time, I'm not going to tolerate anymore practical jokes in this house!" Pein declared, turning on the basement light. Itachi rolled his eyes as Hidan turned his head and began to whistle.

"To be specific, Hidan, leave her alone. She's not your toy."

_'But, she __**is**__ still a __**toy**__,' _he breathed, knowing full well that everyone heard him. Itachi glared at Hidan, only receiving a smirk in return from the immortal. Pein shook his head at the bunch of children that he had the misfortune of working with.

"Shall we make our presence known, un?" Deidara asked as he watched Tobi climb the stairs and reach for the door handle. Pein, Konan, and Zetsu followed after him, and left the basement. The remaining Akatsuki members, remembering very clearly the numerous flights of stairs that awaited them, transported themselves to their separate destinations.

* * *

Itachi sent himself up to the seventh floor, internally delighted to be able to see his 'sister' again. Unconsciously reaching out to knock on the door as he usually would, he snapped out of his temporary daze and realized that there was no door! In fact, even part of the wall was broken. At first, Itachi believed that Autumn had just had a temper tantrum and had accidentally blown the door off the wall in the process. It hadn't happened in the past, but he knew what she was capable of. Especially if she was angry. But, he dismissed that thought as soon as he noticed the debris on the inside of the room. Staying alert, he cautiously entered the room. As a brother, he felt the urge to call out for his sister, but as a ninja, he knew better and kept his silence. As quick as a shadow, he ran to the middle of the room and confronted a figure he had seen on the bed, but when he got there he found himself confronted with a big surprise.

"Autumn?" He asked, the silent figure on the bed. She had pale, almost alabaster, skin, and her hair was lighter, almost a reddish color. If this was Autumn, then she had changed. That was when he noticed it. Feeling her chakra signature, he realized that it had changed. It was stronger, darker, and somehow, there wasn't as much of it. She was so still, if her aura hadn't decided to flare at that moment, he would've mistaken her for dead. The girl opened her eyes, revealing two bright emerald crystals. Slowly, she sat up and looked around the room curiously.

"Autumn?" Itachi questioned once again. The girl's face seemed to light up as her eyes came to rest on him.

"Aniki!" She squealed, hugging him.

"Autumn… Are you alright?" He asked, a bit shocked at her reaction. 'Autumn' let go of him and bounced happily.

"Aniki! It's been soooooooooooooo long since you've been here!" Itachi took a step back from the teenager.

"Autumn, what happened here?" She tipped her head to the side in brief confusion, and then she giggled.

"My name's not Autumn! It's Akiko!" Itachi grabbed a kunai out of his robe, but kept it hidden.

"Akiko, where is Autumn?" She pouted,

"Nani? Am I not good enough for you? Do you not love me anymore?" Itachi took an involuntary step back,

"Who are you?"

"Naze? Does it matter?" At this point, Itachi took out his kunai and pushed the girl again a wall.

"I will ask this one more time, shoujo, who are you? Where is Autumn?" She pouted a bit more, pushing her bottom lip out, attempting to look even cuter,

"Ne, I don't like that name, 'Autumn'. I told you my name is Akiko! That's no way to treat the daughter of a daimyo!"

"Daimyo?" Itachi released her and disappeared. Akiko brushed herself off and stared at the spot where he had just been.

"Where'd he go?" She wondered. Instead of going looking for him, she just shrugged it off and went into the corner to play with her doll collection.

Itachi transported himself down to the ground floor. Once there, he searched for Pein, who was on his way up the staircase to the third floor. Itachi flew up the stairs and stopped him before he could precede any further.

"Itachi, is there a problem?" Pein asked, already annoyed after walking up all those stairs.

"Something's wrong," he stated, simply.

"As in?"

"Autumn." Pein was confused, although he didn't show it.

Her chakra signature has changed drastically. I suspect its Orochimaru's doing." Pein understood what was going on now, it was the cursed seal.

"Aa, do you think it can be reversed?" Itachi nodded as Pein briefly shook his head in disbelief.

"I never thought it would proceed this far…" He muttered, referring to the cursed seal. "Especially not on a girl at such a young age…" At this point, if she weren't in her little 'state', then Autumn would be screaming at them that she was almost fourteen and Sasuke was still thirteen when he first reached level two, but since she's not, we'll just let her body instantly twitch upstairs.

"Where is she?"

"She's in her room. She seems to have reverted to a more childish state."

"What do you suppose will happen to her if we leave her alone?"

"When the seal's chakra weakens and begins to run out, then either her subconscious will reawaken and return her to normal, or her mind will continue to be trapped within itself, and she will ultimately fall into a coma until the seal replenishes itself, or her body deteriorates and she dies." Pein thought for a bit,

"Is there a way to return her before the chakra recedes?" Itachi nodded,

"We would need to awaken her subconscious,"

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Itachi was silent.

"We'll start with everyone here and then if that doesn't work, then we might as well track down her friends." Pein stated, continuing up the stairs.

"Leader-sama…" Pein stopped just behind Itachi,

"Hn?" He responded, not turning.

"When I confronted her earlier, she claimed that her birth name was 'Akiko', and that she was the daughter of a daimyo. What could she mean?"

"I'll look into it, until then Itachi, I want you to gather everyone and have them assemble in the library, we might as well inform everyone of the problem." He said before leaving.

* * *

Itachi gathered everyone and the Akatsuki assembled in the library.

"I'll be brief since time is of the essence. Autumn has been fully consumed by the second level of the cursed seal Orochimaru placed on her. I don't know how it got on her again, but I'm sure it happened after we left." Pein announced.

"What should we do?" Konan asked,

"I want each of you to take turns and guard her room. Use any methods to make certain that she doesn't leave."

"I volunteer for the first shift!" Hidan called from the back, smirking. Pein sighed,

"Ie, Hidan I want you on the last watch. Hopefully by then one of us will have broken through to her." Hidan just shrugged. He was going to make sure his turn came, even if it meant teaming up again.

"If you can, I want each of you to at least attempt to grind her back to reality. If you fail, then I want you to at least keep her occupied for a bit longer than your shift. If even that is too difficult of a task, then proceed with your original mission until it is time for you to switch. Understood?" Everyone stayed silent, signifying a unanimous 'yes'.

"Yoroshii." Pein nodded, "Kisame, you're first. The order goes as following: Kisame, Konan, Zetsu, Kakuzu, Sasori, Deidara, Tobi, Itachi, and finally, Hidan.

"Everyone who is not going will stay here and help me search for a very important piece of information. Now Kisame, you are dismissed. Your shift will end in exactly one hour."

"Hai."

* * *

Kisame teleported himself up to the seventh floor, since he really had no information on what had happened to Autumn, he was particularly curious on how she was behaving.

"Sushi-chan!" He heard a girl squeal from behind him before he was tackled to the ground.

"Huh? Who the heck are you?" Akiko pouted,

"You don't remember me, Sushi-chan? That hurts," she put her hand over her heart, "right here." Kisame's eyes widened, giving him the literal appearance of a fish out of water.

"A-Autumn?" She squealed,

"Yays! Sushi-chan remembers me!" Kisame sweat dropped slightly as the girl giggled happily.

"Sushi-chan! Do you want to play with me?"

"Eh?"

"Yay!"

"Huh?"

"We'll play 'marine biologist'!"

"Uh… Sure."

"Okay!" Akiko led Kisame into the depths of her room, closing and locking the door behind her. Kisame turned to her as he heard the lock click.

"What are you doing?" He asked, alarmed. Akiko laughed,

"It's just a precaution."

"For what?"

"It's your job to watch me, right? I just locked the door to make sure that **no one **gets _in _or _out_." Kisame shrugged and didn't bother dwelling on the thought too much. He figured that since it was her house after all, that she would have found out about the mission eventually. How she did, though, was her business.

C'mon! We only have fifty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds left to play together!" Akiko grabbed Kisame's hand, running to the middle of her room, she leaped onto her bed.

"What are you doing?" He asked, very confused at this point. He had never actually agreed to this in the first place, let alone have time to understand what 'it' was.

"I'm standing on the boat, Silly! I'll be a diver and you can be the shark!" Kisame smirked, now **this** he could do exceptionally well. Akiko made a clone,

"What's that for?" He asked, a bit suspicious.

"She's going to be the marine biologist!" She cried, happily. Just then, she started to perform a few hand signs,

"Now what are you doing?" Kisame asked. He was going to stop her, but before he could, he found himself start to rise off the floor.

"What the hell?" Akiko, who was still on her bed, giggled,

"You're in the ocean! Sharks are supposed to swim!" She nodded to her clone and it dove off the bed and floated in the air.

"What's she doing?" Kisame asked as the clone 'swam' around him.

"Observing you, that's what marine biologists do. They study animals in the ocean!" After a few minutes of watching the clone 'swim', Kisame noticed that Autumn had disappeared. He 'swam' around the room, searching for her, but found nothing. He turned to the clone, only to find that it had disappeared as well.

"Huh?"

"NOW!" He heard from behind him. He turned just in time to see both Akiko and the clone both coming at him at once. Instantly, he regretted leaving Samhada in his room. The girls rammed Kisame and held onto him tightly. He struggled against their chakra-enforced grip. Unbeknownst to him, two more clones waited under the bed. As soon as Kisame was restrained, they came out and attacked. One undid the jutsu and the other took an oar which she had gotten out of nowhere, and used it to somewhat painfully knock him unconscious.

* * *

**And this leads to the 'torture series' -insert evil laugh- cliffie!**


	5. Torture, Victim 1: Kisame, cont

**Yeah, this is a really short chapter, due to lack of imagination and mountains of homework... Oh, well.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

* * *

When Kisame awoke, he found that he couldn't move. He couldn't even breathe properly. He could partially see, but it was as if there was something over him, blurring his vision.

"Sushi-chan!" Akiko squealed as she felt her playmate awaken beneath her. Kisame was vaguely aware of the little girl on top of him,

"Sushi-chan, wake up!" Kisame's brain started to clear as he felt the weight on his chest shift to one side and then finally disappear,

"The hell?" He asked, there seemed to be a plastic sort of substance blocking his escape. Akiko smiled and held up a giant mirror.

"You were asleep for a long time, Sushi-chan! Forty-six minutes and fifteen seconds to be exact. That means that we only have ten minutes and seventeen seconds left to play before Kamihana-chan comes to play!"

"Huh?" Kisame could barely hear her; he was too occupied with attempting to recognize the shapes in the reflection.

"Then again, at this rate, you might not make it that long…" She trailed off and shrugged,

"Oh, well… Let's see how long you do last then." Akiko's clones began to push the giant foam tray that Kisame was sitting in out into the hall.

"Uh…" The clones stopped and Akiko looked over the problem,

"Oh…" The tray wouldn't fit through the door, "Turn the tray on its side." As the clones struggled to get the tray out the door, Kisame finally realized what was going on. He was wrapped in a container covered with plastic. Because of the limited amount of air, he was holding his breath. Not that he had much trouble with that anyway.  
As soon as the tray was finally out the door, Akiko dismissed her clones and admired her work. She had wrapped Kisame in seaweed and put him in a package with over two tons of sushi. She had figured that he would be lonely, dying alone in a cold airless package, so she had surrounded him with his raw fishy brethren.

"Hmm…" She started to muse, one foot on the tray. She could see Kisame glaring up at her as if it were going to help his current situation, which it wasn't.

"I wonder if Kamihana-chan will come faster if you leave…" She smirked as Kisame's eyes widened, predicting what was going through the sick girl's mind. Akiko looked around, checking to see if anyone was watching, before turning back to Kisame.

"Bye-bye!" She said, waving. She slowly pushed the tray forward with her chakra infused foot and giggled before pushing it the final inch, and sitting down to watch the tray slide down twelve flights of steps.

Pein was in the middle of researching when he heard a loud crashing noise coming toward the library. Apparently it wasn't just his imagination because as soon as he gave the signal, the whole Akatsuki ran into the main hall attempting to locate the source of the noise. Turning to look up the stairs, he didn't see the giant foam tray coming at him until it was too late. The edge of the tray hit him in the face, causing him to fall back. Just as he did, the rest of the tray came, sliding down the stairs along with Pein attached to the bottom.

Akiko smirked as she saw what had happened from the top of the stairs. This was a fun game, she decided and that she was going to continue playing it for as long as she could.

The rest of the Akatsuki watched as two of their members slid down the stairs. Itachi and Konan looked up to the seventh floor, and caught a hint of the small girl at the top, laughing.

"I guess it's my turn then…" Konan said, heading up the stairs. Itachi just nodded and looked down after the tray, which only had one more floor to go down.

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**_Don't ask... I was bored. Ta-ta for now!_**


	6. Torture, Victim 2: Konan

**I'm back! I've finished my edits with But, Why Me!!!and after months of school, about two hours ago, I found inspiration! :D the funny thing was that when I got my inspiration, I was in the middle of balancing a spoon on my nose. XD Anywho, Akiko's back to torture another akatsuki member, oh what shall happen to poor Konan? Well I'm not that sympathetic, so I don't care at the momemt! :P**

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

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"Kamihana-chan!(1)" Akiko squealed as Konan stepped over the threshold. She was surprised at how in the last hour; the whole floor had turned into what seemed to be a giant pink labyrinth. She had to give the girl an 'A' for creativity. Once in a while, a wall would move, or disappear, and a few more would replace it.

'_Her mind must've created this space…' _She thought, examining the floor. Stamped upon it was a black rose that stood out from the rest of the room.

"Autumn…" No response.

"Autumn?" Still no response, the girl in question was physically on the bed, seemingly staring into space.

"Autumn!" Konan shouted but to no avail. She sighed, and from her sleeve, retrieved a single sheet of paper. Tossing it at the child on the bed, she waited. She had sent it so that it was headed straight toward the girl's face. If the pain didn't wake her, then she had other methods. Snapping out of her trance-like state, before just before the paper cut her, she took a deep breath and blew at it gently. From her mouth came a small stream of fire, which quickly engulfed and destroyed the paper. The ashes dropped from the air into her open hand.

"Did you need something?" She asked, giving an obviously fake smile. This earned her a sharp look from Konan, but it soon changed into one of surprise as from Akiko's hand came the ashes transformed into another sheet of paper. The sheet rose and flew toward its previous mistress. Not knowing how to take this, Konan braced herself and as she had been trained to do, held her ground. At the command of its new master, the paper froze just in front of Konan. Flipping itself so that it was facing her, letters started to form, and soon a single word dominated the card,

"Akiko?"

"It's my name. You guys call me a shortened version all the time, it shouldn't be too much trouble for you to remember." Not wanting to take it any further and risk upsetting her, Konan simply nodded and dropped the subject. At that moment, an idea popped into Akiko's mind,

"Kamihana-chan, do you want to play a game?" Anything that would keep her happy,

"What did you have in mind?" Akiko smiled as the walls around her started to shift quickly. One wall fell in front of her, thinning itself into a single sheet of paper.

"Make me an origami flower like yours, Mitsukai-chan!(2)" Konan was a bit shocked at the sudden name changes, but didn't show it. Instead, she began using her chakra to help bend and fold the sheet of paper in front of her into a flower. In no time, she unexpectedly found the walls closing in around her, and her current charge was nowhere in sight.

"Akiko?" Konan searched for a way out of her ever shrinking prison, abandoning the flower she had attempted to create. Suddenly, one of the walls disappeared, revealing a long hallway, in which Akiko stood expectantly.

"What's the matter, Kamihana-chan?" She questioned, smirking slightly.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Nothing of importance… Hey, you might want to keep an eye on your work, or else, for all you know, it could end up keeping an eye on you!"

"Nani-?" Before she could say anything else, the wall replaced itself again and her charge had escaped her. Turning back around, she noticed that her partially complete flower had disappeared. Sensing a large amount of chakra above her, she looked up, and to her surprise, a giant paper eye looked back. The eye changed, several more gigantic sheets joining it, until it changed into a familiar looking face.

"What's wrong, Mitsukai? Finding this mission to be a bit harder than you anticipated?" The face split back into it's original components, and they began to rain upon the woman, who then split herself into multiple sheets of paper to avoid being flattened under the paper's weight. Mistakingly, all according to Akiko's plan. The floor then faded out of existence, dumping the room's contents down to the floor below and even further down until it reached the ground floor. Through the small hole in space and time that Akiko had created, said girl stood smirking. Lighting a match, she dropped it on the pile of paper and closed her window and left her room to stand on the stairs and watch.

Konan scrambled to reassemble herself before she caught on fire. The rest of the Akatsuki members, who had first, been helping Kisame out of the plastic, and were now trying to lift if off of their leader froze and dropped the tray back on Pein, who had almost completely crawled out from under it. The mass remaining amount of sushi gave it a startling weight, trapping even one of the most powerful of ninja under it. The uninjured members did their best to stop the fire, thinking more of what would happen if it caught on something large and burnt the house down. Also the fact that it was quite a windy day didn't help their fears either. With Kisame out of commission, they couldn't do many water jutsus, if they tried to beat or cover the fire, there was another chance that whatever they used would catch as well. Zetsu backed up, not wanting to get too close for fear that he, himself might catch, did nothing. Itachi's talent was fire jutsus, the best he could do was find a way to make it bigger, and of course, that wasn't going to help. Tobi had long since gone into his 'Madara mode' and was watching to see what the idiots he was forced to work with could do. Sasori was arguing about the fire itself with Deidara, who was rambling about its apparent beauty. Hidan was acting like a maniac, laughing and praising to his god at the sight of the fire's magnificence, doing all that was possible to hinder his partner's attempts to put it out with Konan's cloak, that had been returned to it's normal state soon after the fire had started.

"Put it out!" Came Konan's head, reassembling itself on the other side of the room. A continuous stream of paper rushed toward it, recreating the rest of her body.

A loud and resounding laugh was heard from the top floor. Everyone stopped and looked up at the insane little girl. She just gave everyone a look that said, 'I'm cute and evil at the same time!' and smirked.

"So who's next?"

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**Hehe, wasn't that fun? Next is Zetsu! Bring it on Plant-Man!**

**(1) Kamihana means 'paper flower'. She calls Konan this, not only because of the flower in her hair, but kami can also be used as a term for someone higher up, not just god, but a person in general.**

**(2) Mitsukai means angel, she calls Konan that mockingly since that's what's she's usually reffered to as.**


	7. Torture, Final Victim: Zetsu

**Grah!!!! I think there may be something wrong with me... This is the most severe case of writer's block I've ever had!!! It's annoying!!! T.T I've can't even write a simple paper for school anymore.....**

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

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Zetsu looked up, without fear, at the little girl who was going to decide his fate. She appeared to have grown younger by a few years. From her former teenage self, to what looked to be no more than a small child. It was hard to believe that this smiling, sweet-looking shoujo had installed such fear, and such trauma into what was once the most feared group of missing ninja in the entire world.

_"So this is why Pein adopted her… He knew she had this potential…" _His whitened half muttered to itself.

**"But how is it possible that this child is able to create such mayhem?"** His black half asked. As if she had heard him, he noticed, the angelic figure on the stairs gave him a smile that was so sweet that any normal person's heart and would melt, their eyes would bleed, and their pancreas would explode attempting to provide enough insulin to dissolve, or even just comprehend how sweet it was. But, Zetsu could tell that it was fake, but still, he found himself staring in awe as the girl silently mouthed out the answer to his question in what he remembered to be a very familiar language. His native tongue, so to speak. It wasn't hard to remember it since it was still in use everyday, but for some reason, Pein had made them switch to another language whenever they arrived. Where they had come from, the language had no real name, but here, in this world it had a proper name. What was it called again? Autumn had mentioned that it was the language of the country of their origin… Japan? Yes, that was it, the language was Japanese. Now, what was it that she was saying? Kenpei? Power… Authority? That was the main goal of the Akatsuki, wasn't it? The natural goal of man…

"Zetsu-san, I'd prefer it if I weren't kept waiting any longer." The room, as well as his thoughts went silent. The young angel had spoken. The plant man took a few steps toward the stairs, but then he stopped, his eyes wandering over to Kisame, who was still wrapped in seaweed.

**"I think I'm in the mood for sushi…"** Zetsu's dark half spoke again, this time imagination the desperately floundering fish-man as an actual giant sushi roll.

_"No, don't eat him, Leader has already made it clear that we are not to eat any of the members."_ Deciding against his stomach, Zetsu passed the ever-tempting tuna and ascended the stairs.

Akiko smiled triumphantly as she spotted the giant Venus flytrap, her next victim, walking toward her. _'Dead man walking.'_ She thought gleefully, pushing her ever annoying other half into a box in the corner of 'her' mind.

**"Listen, Brat. I'm not like the others. I'm not here to play around, you make one move and I'll eat you, understand?"** Zetsu's black half murmured as he passed her, grabbing her arm in the process and dragging her inside the room, closing and locking the door behind them. Instead of frightening her, all of this only made her more eager to proceed with the tortu- *ahem* 'game'.

Once they were alone, Akiko set immediately to work.

"Shokubutsu-san, do you wanna play a _game_ with me?"

_"What kind of 'game'?" _She shrugged, taking a few steps into the depths of her room, away from the plant-man.

"I was thinking we could play something like… Gardener I guess?" Gardener? That didn't sound dangerous and didn't involve weapons unless you counted a trowel. Zetsu had never done anything to the girl, so maybe she decided to be kind? She wasn't that scary, maybe this could be a relaxing game…

_"Alright, I'll play with you. _**But the second you do something suspicious, you're dead." **She nodded rapidly,

"Hai!"

_"So how do you play?" _Akiko went into a mock-thinking pose,

"Well, first we'll need a nice outdoor environment… Clean air, blue skies, shining sun, wide, open space, nutritious soil..." Well that sounded nice at least.

**"Forget it kid, you're not setting foot outside of this room." **She tilted her head for a second before looking up at him innocently,

"I don't need to." She said, simply. Suddenly the room began to shift. There were colors everywhere and then everything went white. Ironically enough, Zetsu blacked out.

When he came to, Zetsu's mind was clouded, his two halves were thinking in unison and his limbs were frozen. All he could think about was how thirsty he was, but that didn't even bother him. He felt calm, cool. He could breathe clearly and he could feel the warmth of the sun upon him… Seconds later he felt the gentle trickle of water raining down onto his parched face. He was truly happy. He felt so… so free.

"Huh? What's this? Is that a weed growing in my garden?" It was this voice that shook him from his reverie. A weed? Where? Weeds were bad. They could blemish his perfection, they could suffocate other plants by inviting their friends, they would steal all of the water and keep it for themselves, and worst of all, they'd steal all of the good soil!!! Stupid, greedy, evil, weeds. Zetsu opened his eyes to get a look at the evil weed before turning his head and noticing how huge the dandelion next to him was…

As Akiko came back with the weed whacker, she looked over her garden. It was almost perfect. Almost wasn't good enough. First, she brought out the weed killer and sprayed the thing then she hacked away at the plant until it was no more. That would teach it to mess with her beautiful plants. Walking away, satisfied, she went to turn on the sprinklers and then let the machines do their work.

Zetsu was in pain. The weed next to him was large and was too close to him. When it had been sprayed, he had been sprayed also. It had been hacked to pieces, like it deserved, but he had been covered in it's leftovers. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he felt the joy of water again…

Akiko smirked as the drug worked it's magic on the plant man. Who knew what a few magic mushrooms could do to a person, plant… thing… At least he'd be satisfied. All she had to remember was to give him a few mushrooms every hour and she could keep her garden as perfect as it was. Zetsu had never done anything to her; she was perfectly content with him. So content that she thought that she might as well keep him. He was unique. Akiko smirked and walked out of her room, it had only been 45 minutes and she was already done with her work. Opening the door to her room, she felt confident about her plan. She was going to rule one way or another, taking out the Akatsuki one by one was sure to get her to the top of SOMETHING at least.

Just as she was about to announce her triumph, she was met face to face with the swirling spirals of the sharingan. Too surprised to react, Akiko quickly fell unconscious.

"Aki, gomenasi." Itachi muttered, catching her body before she hit the ground.

"Oh, come on! That was TOO easy!!!! I didn't even get my fucking turn with her yet!" Hidan's voice came from behind him. Itachi turned, facing the rest of the Akatsuki that weren't 'indisposed' at the moment.

"You're making this sound as if it were a game." Hidan smirked,

"Well it is isn't it?" The traumatized Konan and Kisame had composed themselves enough to tell them what had happened everything had started with the simple, typical, child-like question: "do you want to play a game?"

"Zetsu's still in there."

"Forget him. A few days in whatever hell she's put him through shouldn't kill him! …. Then again, if it does… It sounds like I'll finally be able to get first dibs on the towns people and intruders…" Hidan's smirk grew wider, "Jashin-sama will be pleased."

"I'll go get him. It's better than having to stand out here and listening to this again." Kakuzu volunteered, bravely walking into the pink vortex that had once been an actual room.

"Let us have a moment of silence for his brave deed, un."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Hell no! If he dies I'm not mourning the death of that bastard!" Itachi stared Hidan straight in the eyes,

"Are there any objections against me knocking him out?"

"No, un."

"None from Tobi!"

"I-!" Before he could speak, Hidan fell unconscious and his body tumbled back down the stairs.

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**Sorry for the wait, guys.... T.T Thanks for reading.**


	8. A New Way of Thought

Oh yeah! I am back in action!!!

**Disclaimer: I don't own.**

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Early morning… Autumn woke in what she remembered to be one of the spare bedrooms on the second floor.

"Itachi, you know that it's rude to stare." Her voice cracked. If Itachi were the type, he would've laughed out loud. She knew everyone else would. He didn't respond, but she could feel his gaze over her. Was he watching her like a lion does its prey, or was he protecting her? It was always hard to tell when you were dealing with an Uchiha.

Autumn sat up to look at him. His sharingan eyes could be seen clearly in the darkness. It had been months since she had seen him last, she wanted nothing more to talk to him for hours about her life, school, her friends, but…

_'Sasuke…_' he had been there… It was the last thing she remembered. She was confident that he and his team had left when she had slept, but the problem was that it didn't feel like the just the next day… What had Sasuke done to her? Autumn turned her head and settled for staring at a blank wall. It was better than having to look at him. He was going to die; she couldn't allow it…

"Aki." She flinched at the sound of his voice.

"So when'd you get back? I mean, it's been quite some time since I've seen you. You're doing fine, I can tell."

"What happened?" She froze.

"W-what do you mean? Everything's fine, as you can see." She tried to compose herself as she heard him take a deep breath.

"We had an encounter with a persona of yours. 'Akiko' as she called herself."

"No one got hurt, did they?"

"…" There was a long pause before he finally spoke. "No."

"That's good."

"Who is she?" Autumn didn't answer.

"Aki." No response.

"Autumn." Nothing.

"Autumn, look at me." She didn't move.

"Autumn. Tell me what happened." He touched her shoulder lightly. She pulled away from him and buried her face in her knees. He drew himself away from her to go report to Pein. Leaving her alone at the moment seemed for the best, in the morning, however, she was going to have to face the whole Akatsuki-or at least the ones who weren't traumatized yet-to give an explanation of what happened.

As soon as she heard the door click shut, Autumn let loose. Akiko… Akiko… All she was was a stupid alter ego created by Orochi-teme's cursed seal. She hadn't asked for this. She hadn't asked for any of it. Sure, she was a narutard at first. Excited to meet her favorite characters. In her world, the Akatsuki hadn't been villains, they were antiheros, but… She had gotten close to them and most of them had accepted her, but Sasori had always been more than willing to kill her off if need be. Orochimaru, she had liked him too. She had never really hated him either until she felt the blunt end of the stick. He bit her; she had suffered. Sasuke… She knew how he felt now. But he had wanted his power, while in contrast; she had no need or any use for it. It had all come in handy that one time, when she had brought back May, but… She wouldn't have died if she had never met them. Her parents might've been still alive…

It was too late to sit there and regret the past. She had done too much of it already and it was nothing more than a waist of time. She had a new family now, she was accepted by most in the Akatsuki, she had friends who cared, enemies who cared, people who cared the most whether or not she lived or died, so it was time to stop brooding about the past and look to the damn future! That was it… She was going to look to the future. Her parents would want her to move on. It was time that she accepted it, whether or not the bodies were found, they were dead, she was an orphan, adopted by a group of mass murderers who were apparently training her to become an assassin or something, not that she minded, and she was on the run from her enemies, protecting her friends from harm, and all in all, her life was just like the most exciting story that she could think of. All of this led to the question though, why wasn't she having fun with it?

Cleo, that traitorous snake, had had plenty of fun with her. And then there were those moments between her and her supposed teammates… May, she was still her best friend; they had fun whenever they could. Yes, that was it. This was how she was going to run her life now. She was going to be a good little girl. A soldier. A ninja. A pawn. A tool. Her alliances? She had none. Whoever was in possession of her was whom she worked for. If she somehow made it into the hands of the protagonists, then she would blame the cursed seal for everything. She would always have Naruto and Team Kakashi to fall back on. They'd defend her. Besides, who could doubt the credibility of a harmless little girl? Oh yes, she was going to have such fun. She was going to lie and cheat until she was at the top. The Akatsuki weren't going to win in the end, Orochimaru definitely wasn't either; Konoha would always accept her no matter what. She would have to work hard to keep this a secret from Itachi; she knew this for a fact, but who cared? After all, lying was the most fun a girl could have.

"Autumn." Said girl looked up as her current guardian called her name. She had been so busy with her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed his presence. She smiled in the darkness, activating her sharingan and acknowledging his presence.

"What happened?" She closed her eyes. Such prying questions…

"Answer me." Pein, being of a shorter temper than Itachi, walked directly over to her and turned her face toward him. She let out a small gasp in pain. Why was she so sensitive?

"Shoujo, I demand that you answer me. What occurred in our absence?" Feeling a bit bold at the moment, just wanted to test how far Pein would let her go before he'd punish her. Rule number one when it comes to being a teenager: Test your limits.

"G-gomenasi, Otou-sama…" She stuttered out, not sounding as confident as she had hoped. He drew his hand back as if to strike her, but instead of doing what her instincts were telling her to and protecting herself, she held her ground. As soon as his hand had receded from her face, she had bowed her head a tad. Just enough to show him that she wasn't mocking him. Awaiting the impending blow, Autumn clenched her teeth together, hoping that he'd at the very least take some pity upon her and give her a warning first. None came. In fact, the blow she had been waiting for, expecting even, hadn't come at all. His hand had made contact, but it wasn't on her face. He had let his hand come down and rest on top of her head. Surprised, Autumn slowly raised her head and looked at him, her eyes flickering with hints of curiosity and confusion. Pein did nothing more than nod to her to continue.

He'd accept the name… For now at least. She'd lost so much already; he was going to be her reprieve. So this was how it felt to be needed… To have someone rely on you… He liked it.

"Sasuke…" She uttered the name with several venomous drops of malice. "He did something to me and activated the second stage of my cursed seal." Her eyes briefly changed from the sharingan's red to her natural brown, to Akiko's green, and back again. She wasn't going to mention Cleopatra's involvement. She was going to give the snake a second chance before turning her in as well.

Pein nodded, understanding. Orochimaru's little pawn had done this to her, he'd pay. That was the first strike against him. Before, he had been a nuisance and nothing beyond that, but he was starting to dig himself a nice grave, and he was going to make sure that he slept in it.

"Sleep." He commanded, removing his hand from her head. Autumn was more than happy to comply. She relaxed and laid back on the bed. "Tomorrow, you'll begin your training again," he announced. That was all right with her. She was starting to get a little rust anyway. This was perfect, everything was starting to go according to her quickly thrown-together plan, and she found it amusing watching the first piece fall into place. Oh the fun she was going to have.

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Heh, I just thought of this on a whim this evening and an hour or two later, I had created this. I'm happy and you know what would make me happier? Reviews!


	9. Pity

_Two in a row, wow. This is what happens when i'm avoiding my real work. I get creative._

_**Disclaimer: I don't own.**_

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'Crap…'

There was no way to avoid this confrontation. She'd tried and failed. Autumn stood before the Akatsuki, waiting for someone to either run screaming at her, or for someone to murder her on the spot. Despite her new resolve, having to face her actions still scared the crap out of her. Especially when she had no clue what it was that she had done. Akiko was vicious and constantly fought for dominance of the girl's mind. The seal on the seal was broken. Useless. She had to suppress what she had finally admitted to be her other self. More so now because with her new resolve, she had allowed Akiko to help her in this current situation since she didn't want to face them alone. She may have changed, but she was still the same scared little girl from the beginning of this whole ordeal.

"I-I'm sorry?" She apologized, not knowing what else to say and desperate to break the dark, looming silence. Kisame chuckled darkly.

"She says she's sorry. Oh, that's rich."

"Um…" She backed up a bit. Suddenly, several pieces of paper flew past her head and several others caught her clothing and pinned her against the wall. She gulped. This was a serious hole in her plan.

"You're sorry? Ha. That's a laugh." Konan commented, glaring at her. Autumn bit her lip.

"Sincerely… I apologize…" This time a kunai embedded itself in the wall, a centimeter from her eye, causing her breath to catch in her throat.

_**'Toughen up, will ya? They can't hurt you. They can't kill you. Why are you so afraid?' **_Akiko asked inside of her head.

'_Because… because…' _Autumn closed her eyes and tried to respond. She didn't know why… It was just because…

'_**Because?' **_

_'Because… I…'_

'_**Because you what?' **_

'_I… don't know…' _Autumn's eyes snapped open as she felt the gust of air created by another kunai flying by her face.

'_**Admit it. You're afraid just because you're a coward.'**_

'_What?'_ Suddenly, right before her eyes, she saw herself, three years younger, she was at the police station, crying…

_**Flashback**_

_"What's your name, kiddo?" A female officer asked, offering her some cake and ice cream. The small girl, still dressed in her pajamas, refused the plate._

_"Well then?"_

_"Autumn…" The cheery officer put her arm around the girl's shoulders and tried to calm her trembling body._

_"Autumn? Like the season, that's a pretty name." The girl swatted the woman's arm away and went to sit in a corner. The woman followed after,_

_"Don't be shy, I won't bite."_

_"Shut up." The woman looked taken aback._

_"I know you know my name, I know you're only out here to express your pity, well I don't want it!" She attempted to run past her, but tripped. Before the memory could continue the way she had played it back so many times in her mind, her younger self looked at the woman behind her. Then, everywhere, she heard voices…_

'Oh did you hear what happened?'

_'Yeah, I heard there was a kid left behind.'_

_'I've been trying to find someone to take custody of her, her grandmother was the only one who'd take her, and she did so very reluctantly.'_

**_Sympathy._**

_'Oh, the poor child!'_

_'If I could I'd adopt her!'_

_'I feel so bad for her…'_

_'Let's buy her some presents! That'll make her forget all about this.'_

_'Let's take her to a toy store!'_

**_Charity._**

_The child's head swung from one direction to another. The male officers who had visited her house…_

_'Poor kid, wish I could do something for her.'_

_'I pity the child. Not even her brother wanted her.'_

**_Benevolence._**

_The woman who had offered her sweets was talking to another woman._

_'Yeah, I can't imagine what she's going through. Her parents just disappeared!'_

_'You don't think…'_

_'What?'_

_'That her parents just abandoned her!'_

_'They wouldn't!'_

_'Well the rest of her family has!'_

_'Oh I feel so sorry for her!'_

**_Pity._**

_The voices grew louder and came more rapidly until she couldn't take it anymore._

_"Stop…. Stop, please stop!" She begged. They kept coming. "I don't want your pity!"_

_**"I don't want your pity. I don't need your pity. All I need is a break! So my parents are gone, so what? No one wants me? Oh well. I don't need them. I don't need anyone!" **She started to laugh hysterically. **"You all think I'm so poor, so weak. So pitiful, but you're wrong! I'll show you, I'll prove it, I'll kill you all!"**_

Autumn broke free from her restraints and caught a kunai that was headed for her face. She raised her head from it's bowed position and looked everyone in the eye, smirking. Taking out a handful of shuriken, she shot them all at Kisame and pinned him to the floor. She took out an exploding tag and aimed for Konan, but before she could throw it, Itachi came up behind her and restrained her arms.

"Let go of me."

"Autumn, what's gotten into you, un?" Asked Deidara, somewhat disappointed that the tag hadn't had it's chance to shine. In no time, several poisoned senbons flew from a hidden compartment in her mouth and headed toward Deidara's neck. Before they could hit, Sasori snatched them out of the air and examined them. Several kunai started to fly in all directions, even at Pein who stepped forward seconds later and gave her a glare and she instantly withdrew from her assault. Itachi dragged her from the room and threw her onto the ground in the hallway. She scrambled to get up, but he put his foot on her chest and held a kunai to her throat.

"You wouldn't dare." She was right. Itachi released her and stood off to the side as Pein came out, snatched her collar and pushed her into a wall. She cringed as her body made impact.

"Listen to me, and listen well. I will not tolerate you attacking any of our comrades, understand?" Of course he meant himself, Mandara, and Konan more than anyone else. "I will give you one more chance to redeem yourself and repent your actions, but if you ever do that again," he drew a kunai and pushed the blade into the skin on her arm, drawing blood. She gave a small cry of pain. "Then I will mutilate your skin until every inch is scarred over." Slowly, he dragged the kunai across the length of her arm until he reached her hand and slashed her wrist and watched it bleed. He watched the look of pain spread across her face and then relief as her wound started to heal automatically. Pein let go of her and let her drop to the floor. She refused to cry, but she couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. The man before her watched as she pressed her forehead to the ground and apologized.

"Gomenasi, Otou-sama." There was that name again. He looked at her and internally cringed. She was too loyal to him. He couldn't take this scene and hurried away.

Itachi picked Autumn off of the floor and checked her arm. It was covered in blood, but the wound had closed.

"Autumn, I-" She pulled herself away from him.

"I don't need your pity." She stated. Itachi pulled her back and wrapped his arms around her.

"I wasn't offering my sympathies. You're going out of control, and soon no one will be able to bring you back. I won't even be able to try."

"I'm fine."

"One more stunt like that, and you're going to regret ever meeting us." He warned and let her go. Ignoring him, she walked down to the basement to train.

Akiko was right. They wouldn't kill her. Hurt her and break her spirit? They'd try, but her life wasn't on the line. That stunt she had pulled was just her testing her boundaries again. For someone who's being held captive, she had so much freedom. Heh, she'd show them. By the time that everything was over, she'd be the so far ahead that there was no way they could bring her down.

**_'I told you, didn't I?' _**

_'You did.'_

**_'Are you ready, then?'_**

_'Not now. I'll use that as a last resort, just in case I can't handle whatever I get myself into.'_

**'_Fine.'_ **Akiko pouted.

_'Someday I'll show them. I'll show them all. I'll make it to the top and then I'll be the one pitying them.'_


	10. First Bonus Chapter

This was a random thing I did for my forum in one of our little scenes last year. I had it posted on 'But, Why Me!!!', but took it down because it really didn't fit in with the timeline.

Disclaimer: I don't own **Sasuke** or **Karin**, _nor_ do I own **DeviantART**. But, I do own **Cleo** and **Autumn**.

* * *

Autumn was on her computer, waiting for her newly "edited" picture of **_K_**arin to load, just then, she felt a sudden pain in her chest.

"Cleo!!!" She called out, as her heart, once again stopped beating. Moments later, said snake/person ran into the room.

"Aki? Aki!" Cleo looked at the poor girl l**_y_**ing on the floor, tears forming in her eyes.

"Well that was a 'bit' anticlimactic..." Karin said, dr_**o**_pping down from the ceiling.

"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!?!"

"Well that bitch deserved it after what she did to MY Sasuke."

"MY Sasuke this, MY Sasuke that! This poor, sweet, innocent, little girl, just **died**! Doesn't an_**y**_thing else cross your mind!?!"

"Well look who's talking-" As the two argued, they both failed to notice the cursed seal on Autumn's neck light up.

"Will you two Shut. Up. NOW!" They froze, fearing the wrath of the possesed thirteen year old.

"Sorry..." Cleo squeaked, as Autumn s**_a_**t up, the curse mark, consuming her body.

"This is the fourth time I have died for no spesific reason. Now, unless you're here to show sympathy for me and my habitual dying issue, GET OUT!" Karin ran out of the room, with Cleo close behind, and Autumn went back to waiting for her picture to show up on her Deviant Art account.

* * *

Don't ask. If you're wondering what's going on and why I wrote this, I'll explain the whole thing to you. We were roleplaying in my forum for Ouran, and basically this was the setup:

Kyoya found a death note, used it, was just going to fade into oblivion when he died. Haruhi used the death note, was going to fade into oblivion as well, Tamaki was emotionally unstable and didn't want to die alone, so he used it too. The people that Kyoya and Haruhi killed had scenes too, but they were actually related to the story and the plot of the role play, and they weren't as entertaining as this one.

Also, if you noticed, there are underlined and bolded letters that are "randomly" placed. Kudos if you know what they spell out. (Here's a hint, although I'm sure you've figured it out already, AB. Think Ouran.)


	11. Punished

Longer chappie this time. Yay. Be appreciative. I'm up at a quarter passed midnight finishing this and I'm still avoiding my essay.

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

* * *

Three days left… She had to finish testing them before school resumed. Besides, if she just started acting perfect for no reason, they wouldn't trust her. Then again, she doubted they would either way. It was starting to become painfully obvious (to some) that she was planning something, but what it was, she'd make sure that they'd never know.

'_**Well then, what shall we do next?'**_

'_How should I know? I'm letting you run this show.'_

'_**Oh, that's so sweet. Well then, how about we launch a final attack? Let's show them how powerful we can really be.'**_

'_You're insane.'_

'_**So you've noticed.'**_

'_I like it.'_

'_**And I'm flattered. Well then, if you let me do this and we merge our thoughts today, I'll let you run the rest of your life.'**_

'_Really?'_

'_**Just promise to let me have my fun when we're fighting.'**_

'_Deal.' _Autumn could see her other half smirking inside of her mind. This might've been a bad idea, but they were running out of time, and drastic times called for drastic measures.

'_So what's the plan?'_

'_**Simple. We stage an all out attack and take the punishment later.'**_

'_So I get hurt?'_

'_**Hon, you know you would.'**_

'_True… I guess the scars'll heal anyway.'_

'_**That's the spirit, now gear up and let's go!' **_As if it was fate, just then, there was a knock at the door.

"Com-" Sasori entered. "… In. Rude much?" He threw a senbon at her head and watched as she dodged.

"You're going to train with me." She raised an eyebrow,

"Was that a request?"

"No, shoujo, that was a command. Come." He held the door open and motioned for her to go.

'…'

'_**What?'**_

'_Why do I bother listening to you?'_

'_**I don't know, why?'**_

'_I'm trying to figure that out…' _Autumn felt her body move forward as Sasori forced her out the door. For once, she didn't mind. It just meant less work for her.

"Oi," She called over to Sasori as she started to walk down the stairs "You're not going to try and murder me this time, are you?" Her body froze as he held her in place. Sasori came from behind her and turned her head so that she was facing him.

"I will do as I like with you. If you die, then all the more benefit for me."

'_**I'd take that as a yes.'**_

"Wouldn't that be- Ah!" He slapped her and allowed her body to fall down the stairs.

"Child abuser!!!" She cried out.

'_If I get hurt falling down the stairs, what makes you think that I'm going to make it through whatever they do to me?'_

'_**I never said I did. Sorry, but for that part, you're on your own.'**_

'_A lot of help you are.'_

"Get up." Sasori demanded, looking down at her.

"And if I'd rather stay here on the floor where's it's almost impossible for me to get hurt?" She immediately ate her words when a blade came out of Sasori's sandal. He swung his foot back to kick her, but she got up and jumped out of the way before he could do anything more to injure her.

"Basement or outside?" She asked, nervous. Sasori smirked, now that was more like it.

"Outside. Walk." She ran.

'_**A bit eager to die?'**_

'_Do me a favor, and don't talk to me while we're doing this. Whenever we talk, I start blanking out.'_

'_**Can do! I'll just watch.' **_Autumn walked outside to a random field. Since there was no one for miles around and the Akatsuki had a barrier up, it was perfectly safe to train outside for once. Sasori came out moments later, followed by Deidara, Kisame, Konan, Hidan, and Kakuzu.

"Please tell me they're going to watch!" Hidan smiled and shook his head.

"Payback time, bitch."

"I haven't done anything to you!" He pointed to his foot and his pants.

"Oh… Those were accidents. And why are Deidara and Kakuzu after me too?" Deidara looked at his mouth on his hand.

"We haven't trained with you that often, un."

"Plus, Konan promised to pay us if we did." Autumn started to back away, but soon stopped as Sasori held her still with his chakra threads and she felt Kakuzu hold her down.

"This isn't fair!"

"Life isn't fair," Konan spoke for the first time.

"So I think it's time for you to realize that and get over it." Kisame added. Not wanting to die a painful death at the hands of these weirdoes, she did what any other kid would do… Scream for their parents.

"Pein, Itachi!!!!" Luckily for her, they're ninjas. They heard her and came running.

"What?" Pein didn't seem all that concerned.

"A little help… please?"

"I see nothing wrong here." Way to go, Dad.

"This isn't fair! Sasori dragged me out here and suddenly everyone else comes out of nowhere trying to kill me! I'm not even armed!" Sasori raised an eyebrow,

"And what do you call those poisoned senbon that you have hidden in your mouth?"

"A last resort." Pein sighed,

"Sasori, Kakuzu, release her." They did as they were told, and Itachi walked over and handed her a katana. As soon as he did, Pein gave them the order to resume and she was tied up again.

"Wait, you're not serious…"

"You may begin," he stated.

Immediately, she was drowned in a sea of paper while several clay bugs began to crawl up her arms and legs. Autumn struggled but to no avail… She needed… air… Doing as she had been taught to, she retracted her chakra into her body before releasing it in a huge wave, causing her attackers to back off temporarily.

Autumn fell to the ground, gasping for air.

"You all… fail… at life…" Pein glared at her, but she didn't seem to notice. She picked up the katana and stood up. Before she could think of a strategy, she was attacked from behind. It was Tobi.

"Oh come on! You weren't part of this either!"

"Tobi wanted to train too…"

"Tobi is a good boy, un!" (don't think any one expected that one.)

"Shut it!" Autumn yelled, infusing the blade with her chakra. Out of nowhere, Hidan came running at her. She rolled to the side, and she was caught in Sasori's trap. Hundreds of kunai started to fly at her from every direction. She managed to block some with the katana, but the rest embedded themselves deep inside her flesh. In less than five minutes, she fell. When the storm of kunai ceased, nothing could be seen except for a backwards porcupine, huddled in the middle of the field. Itachi took a step forward to see if she was hurt, but retreated when the kunai in her body somehow repealed and flew in all directions.

Autumn took some time and struggled to stand. Her head came up, the sharingan swirling furiously in her eyes. She grabbed the katana and just stood there. No one moved. Then, before they could blink, Autumn, half under the control of Akiko, disappeared.

"Where'd she go, un?"

"_**Right behind you." **_Everyone turned just in time to see Aki shove her katana through Deidara's stomach. Konan split herself into sheets of paper and flew at her in a blinding white cloud as Kakuzu attempted to stab blindly with his threads, and Kisame ran in to the middle and swung at the spot where Autumn should've been standing. Meanwhile, Sasori caught the kunai that had been flying toward his heart from behind. Summoning several puppets, he turned and sent them all after the girl. Kisame noticed this and hurried to land an attack on his real target. Tobi helped Itachi carry Deidara into the house, and Pein started to get agitated.

Every focused their attack on the real Autumn and could feel it when they finally hit their mark. When the dust cleared, Autumn had been stabbed through both her stomach and what should've been her heart by Sasori's puppets, Konan flew around her, causing paper cuts every time she batted an eyelash. Kisame had successfully shaved the whole right side of her body with Samhada, Hidan had his scythe positioned at her throat, and Kakuzu had managed to run his threads through her body at every other angle. She was a bloody mess. She dropped the katana, and struggled to lift her arm, still being cut constantly by Konan, to push away the blade of Hidan's scythe. Autumn's arm started to heal and the blood stopped flowing, but anyone could see, her eyes were empty. Suddenly, Sasori yelled out and relinquished his control of his puppets as he fell back, severely burned. Autumn would've fallen forward because of the puppet's weight as their blades were still embedded in her body, but she was forced in place by Kakuzu's threads after he had impaled her. Using her good arm, Autumn made the necessary hand seals to do a fire jutsu, once again, setting Konan on fire. As expected, the paper retreated.

Itachi came back out and stared at Autumn's current predicament. As soon as he made a move to help, Pein held him back. Seconds later, Hidan's limbs began to fly in every direction as Autumn used her chakra as blades, slicing him to bits, and freeing herself from Kakuzu's threads. Loosing all support, she fell to her knees. Sasori, seeing a final chance, reconnected his chakra strings to his puppets and ripped their blades from the girl's body. Instead of dying like most would've, she glared directly at him.

"_**You shouldn't have done that."**_

"No, you're the one who shouldn't have done anything." Konan said, reassembling herself, pissed. Autumn sighed; this was going to be harder than expected. She had four able-bodied enemies to fight, and she was starting to itch to kill.

"Enough." Pein intervened. No one listened. Sasori was posed to strike, as was Kisame. Konan drew a kunai, and Kakuzu just wanted to get paid.

"Burn…" Barely a whisper, but her sharingan complied and created the black flames of Amaterasu, which engulfed her remaining foes and mistakenly surrounded Pein and Itachi.

'_Am I going to get in trouble for this?' _Autumn asked Akiko who had full control of her body at this point.

'_**Probably, but it won't be your fault if it helps any.'**_

'_I feel so much better.'_

"Call if off!" Pein commanded as the ring of fire started to close in only to be somewhat subdued by Itachi's own Amaterasu. Pein escaped the circle of flame and approached Autumn. She shot six senbon at his throat, but Itachi stopped them as he passed through, subduing the remaining flames.

_'I'm dead.' _She thought, looking up at a not-so-happy Pein as he towered over her.

"I will give you one chance to explain your actions."

_'Please don't mess this up!'_

_**"Rot in hell you murdering bastard."**_

_'You did not just say that!!!!'_

_**'Good luck~!' **_Akiko's essence retreated back into the far corners of Autumn's mind, but it was to late to defend herself. Pein grabbed hold of her hair and dragged her toward the house. The whole entire field seemed to be in flame, but Autumn had no control over it. She struggled against Pein's iron grip on her hair, but to no avail. He led her into the house and then into the basement where he threw her into the ground. She watched in horror as he picked up a whip from a nearby weapon rack.

"Stay still."

"What are you doing?" He looked the whip over and cracked it a few times,

"Disobeying my orders. 5 lashes." She backed away until she was against the wall.

"A second attempt at my life. 15 lashes." Behind him, the door opened. It was Itachi, there to tell him that he had finished extinguishing the flames. Pein did not turn to him.

"Final insult, 2 lashes."

"Attempted murder of the whole Akatsuki." She interrupted him,

"They tried to kill me first! They always do! They just don't like me, that one isn't my fault, it was self defense!" His gaze upon her turned almost completely hostile.

"Very well then. You will be excused from that crime." That helped, but very little.

"22 lashes total. Anything else in your defense?"

_'Yes!'_

_**'No.'**_

"It was Akiko."

"And she is you, am I correct?"

"… Hai."

"For your sake, you will learn to control your alter ego." He took a step toward her.

"Please, don't do this…"

"No '_gomenasi, Otou-sama' _this time?" He mocked.

"Will it help?"

"No." She bit her lip as Itachi descended the stairs. She didn't want him to see this…

"Turn around." Pein commanded. She didn't move.

"Turn around, shoujo." By now, others had heard the commotion and decided to check it out. Kakuzu descended the stairs, Hidan's head in tow.

"Kakuzu, restrain her." He gladly complied. He sent his threads and tied her against the wall.

"D-don't do this…" She couldn't help but cry. It wasn't her fault!"

"Kabuto, stand by." Well that was surprising. Kabuto descended the stairs and joined the party. Pein ran his hand over the whip and infused it with just enough chakra to keep the wounds open for a while.

**"Bastards! I will kill you all!" **Akiko screamed, lured to the surface. Pein cracked the whip once and then began.

* * *

Autumn was in her temporary room, being treated for her wounds by Kabuto.

"Quite a bit of trouble you've gotten yourself into in my absence." She didn't respond. Itachi sat in a corner, watching his every move.

"If you had just come back with me when you had the chance, you would've been treated like a princess, just like you deserved." Still no response. Autumn was too busy with her own thoughts.

_'What is wrong with you!?!'_

_**'What?'**_

_'After that smart comment of yours, he kept adding lashes!'_

_**'What's your point? I should be the one yelling at you!'**_

_'You? Yelling at me? Ha! I'm the one with the scars.'_

_**'Yes, but I'm the one who felt the pain.'**_

_'Boo hoo. The spoiled little brat got a booboo.'_

_**'You should be thanking me!'**_

_'Thanking you! I should mentally strangle you! This is your fault!'_

_**'Oh stop it. And Kabuto's right, we should've gone with him. I wanted to.'**_

_'Not your decision to make. Never was, never will be.'_

_**'You're so mean! I'm not talking to you anymore!'**_

_'Thank you, there is a god.' _And then all was quiet. Autumn gave a somewhat contented sigh as she felt her other half retreat back into the depths of her mind.

"Have a fight, did you?" Kabuto inquired.

"That's none of your business." As Autumn came back to reality for the first time in three hours, she was met with the stinging pain in her back from her earlier punishment. She cringed and grinded her teeth, trying to hold back tears. How could someone as fragile as Akiko stand something like this? Itachi, not aware of her mental status and her switching personalities, was under the impression that Kabuto had done something to her. He pulled out a kunai, but Autumn's voice stopped him,

"Nii-san… What happened?" Momentarily, Itachi forgot about Kabuto and hurried to her side.

"You were barely conscious." Kabuto answered, earning a glare from Itachi. "Good thing I was here."

"Why are you here, anyway?" Autumn murmured.

"You brought me here yesterday. Everyone found me this morning, laying on the couch."

"I don't remember falling asleep..." Itachi played with a few loose strands of her hair,

"You did, I was watching. It wasn't for very long, though." Autumn blew her hair out of her face, and tried to sit up, but the pain in her back increased.

"Ah!" She cried out. Kabuto held her down until she agreed to be still so he could finish.

"Autumn, you're not helping yourself. Don't move." She was more than happy to comply. Autumn lied there, perfectly still, not wanting to go through any more pain than was already necessary.

"Things have changed a lot in our world since you were there last." Kabuto started a new conversation.

"Oh?" She didn't really care, but anything to take her mind off of the pain.

For two hours, Autumn and Kabuto conversed, occasionally graced by the small input from the Uchiha in the room. In that amount of time, Autumn was calm, and by the end of that period, Kabuto had finished bandaging her wounds. She felt better than ever. She even actually thanked him! But after two hours, that was when Pein came in, looking for Itachi. Autumn and Kabuto had been in the middle of a heated conversation on pouring salt in a wound, but were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Co-!" Pein opened the door. "-me in… Why do I even bother?" Pein's gaze switched to her after a few seconds, causing her to duck under a blanket, not wanting him to look upon her in such a state.

"Itachi." He got in hint. Itachi patted Autumn's head beneath the blanket and left the room, Pein following in suit. Kabuto laughed,

"My, you seem to be so tame now!" She hit him.

"One more comment, and I'll be sure to slit your throat." Kabuto chuckled at her remark. What happened to that wild little girl I met last year?"

"She died."

"Oh? When was her funeral?"

"She didn't have one. No one noticed that she had gone."

"How unfortunate."

"Yes it is, now are you just going to sit there all night?"

"Yep. Someone's going to have to watch over you."

"Whatever. I need to sleep. Hopefully, everyone'll be gone when I wake up."

"Have fun."

"Die."

"Goodnight to you too." He turned off the lights and listened as her breathing calmed until it was slow and even. She was up to something. He knew it. Itachi knew it. But what? That, no one knew. He guessed that he'd just have to watch her for a while, after all, he had all the time in the world.

Kabuto watched as Autumn rolled over in her sleep a few times. Her wounds had healed because of her body's constant emittance of chakra increased while she slept. For once sleep really was the answer, instead of just being a useless piece of advice. Who knew what she could really do: He was so intrigued with the possibilities. He guessed that he'd have to test her, starting the next day. Until then, he wasn't planning on leaving so he'd just have to tie himself to that world… His mission began at dawn.

* * *

Yes, I brought Kabuto back! Why? Just because I like him for some really odd reason. Trust me, even I don't know. Aw well. While you're getting some 'R&R' don't forget to R&R my story.


	12. My Akaihime

**_Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for not updating in a while, I've been busy preparing for a few things. I'm going to be away for most of the summer so I've been packing and before that, there were finals and... Yeah, you get the point._**

**_Disclaimer: I own Autumn, that's it._**

* * *

"Mmm…" Autumn moaned gently, finding herself engrossed in the warmth and comfort she was experiencing. She could feel the gentle caress of someone's hand as they brushed her hair from her face and continuously stroked her cheek. Whomever it was that was causing these sensations chuckled, causing Autumn in turn, to stir.

"What the…?" She murmured, opening her eyes.

"Morning, Aki-chan."

"…"

"…"

"HOLYHELLWHATTHEFUCKAREYOUDOING!?!" Autumn burst out, suddenly jumping off the bed, away from Kabuto's touch. He blinked at her surprised reaction but smiled, amusement dancing in his eyes.

"Why, you seemed to enjoy it for a minute."

"Yes, but that was before I figured out that it was you who was touching me."

"I'm hurt." Autumn scoffed,

"You should be. What do you want?" Kabuto rose from his perch at the head of the bed and walked toward the girl. Autumn reached behind her to grab a kunai but mentally cursed herself when she realized that her holster wasn't there. Why would it be? She had forgotten to put it on before her battle with Sasori and the rest of the Akatsuki.

"Calm down, will you? It's not like I'm going to hurt you or anything."

"I don't know that, and I don't trust you. So stop where you are before I call Itachi in here." He smirked,

"I'm afraid he's not home." Autumn gulped. She had fallen asleep again.

"Then who is here?"

"Why don't you open that door behind you and find out?" She didn't move.

_'Akiko, what do I do now?' _There was silence in her mind, _'Akiko? Akiko!'_ No answer.

"Your alter ego isn't going to help you right now. I made sure she went into a deep sleep." Was that a relief or another reason to hate him? At this point, she wasn't sure. Though it was nice not to have Akiko constantly nagging her, the child in her mind was the essence of evil that lived and thrived on not only torturing her 'host' but others as well. Without her, Autumn wouldn't have gone as far as she had… At least she didn't have the Akatsuki to deal with now, but Kabuto… He was Akiko's area of expertise. Taking a deep breath, Autumn put on a calm façade and looked Kabuto in the eye,

"What do you want?"

"Nothing really, just a talk. I heard that Sasuke-kun stopped by." He said, nonchalantly,

"Go away." Kabuto took few more steps toward her and she spit a few poisoned senbon at his throat. With great speed, he took out a kunai a deflected the senbon and retaliated by pinning her against the door.

"Autumn," she looked down at the floor. "Look at me." Ignoring him, she kept her eyes on her shoes until she heard him utter a few long forgotten words,

"My Akai-hime…" Her head shot up as he whispered this into her ear. Her hand followed in suit, striking him across the face.

"Don't you dare say that, ever!" She cried, flustered and frustrated that he had found her weakness. Tears welled in her eyes as she bit into her lower lip, trying to hold back the forthcoming urge to cling to him and cry to her heart's content, just as she had done with her brother years before.

* * *

**_Flashback…_**

_A seven-year-old Autumn stood alone in an open field. Tears formed streams down her cheeks, as she trembled while choked sobs escaped her throat. She had just had an argument with her parents… They always treated her like such a child! But… She was one, wasn't she? All she wanted was a little respect and independence. She was a growing girl, she just wanted a bit of space…_

"_Don't cry." A boy, around the age of 16 spoke, walking toward the small girl. His footsteps made no sound as he closed the gap between them._

"_Why not?" She asked, turning around to look up at the boy who had never done her any wrong. "Why shouldn't I cry, Tokuba? I've been given every reason to cry!" The boy, Tokuba, average in height, with brown hair and eyes to match those of this sister, kneeled to her level,_

"_Don't let anyone see you cry. Crying is a sign of weakness." _

"_I know that, it's exactly why I was out here, ALONE." The boy shook his head,_

"_I know how you feel, but just cheer up, will you? You should be happy."_

"_Happy? Outside of my training, everyone treats me like I'm some kind of toy! As if I'm going to fall apart if I get hurt." Tokuba wrapped his arms around his little sister,_

"_Iie, Aki-chan. Everyone treats you like a princess, because that's what you deserve. The world is your castle and we are but your humble servants."_

"_Demo…" Tokuba smiled, of course he wasn't her brother by birth, he had been adopted a few years ago after spending a year in a orphanage in Japan. Since he had come to America, he had begun to teach the small girl his native tongue. She understood very little, and though she insisted that she'd never need it in life and she'd just forget it in a year, he was pleased with her progress._

"_Look here," he said, pointing at a small oak tree. The leaves of the tree were changing colors to match those most commonly associated with fall. Reds and gold, brown and a little green from the pine trees in the background._

"_It's a tree, what about it?" _

"_All of this is what your name represents. When red becomes more than just another color, but one recognized in nature as immediate beauty." She bit her lip, it was pretty…_

"_So?" He chuckled,_

"_So, my little princess, this is your kingdom. When the wind blows, the leaves dance for you and only you. The colors change in recognition of you! You are my red princess, my Akai-hime."_

_**End Flashback…**_

* * *

"You have no right to call me that!" Autumn cried once more as Kabuto regained his composure. She looked up at him, her vision blurred, expecting him to be angry. She was expecting him to hit her, stab her, or hurt her in some way, she wanted him to! She wanted him to strike or lash out at her. Anything to bring her out of this painful memory, anything to bring her back to reality… Instead of granting her silent wish, he looked her straight in the eye and began to perform a jutsu, in no time, his appearance had changed to look just like _he_ had on that day… Letting Autumn wipe away her own tears, he stood perfectly still as she stopped to look up at him.

"…"

"…"

"… BASTARD!!!" Instead of the other way around, it was Autumn who lashed out at Kabuto, who skillfully dodged.

"…"

"I knew you were a sadist, but this is just sick! My brother, really?"

"Aki…"

"It's AUTUMN! What is wrong with you? Why don't you henge into the rest of my family as well, hm?" Kabuto stared at her, long and hard…

"Autumn…"

"WHAT!?!" She snapped, glaring at him,

"Autumn, I am your brother." He removed his glasses and moved his hair around for a second, "Can't you see it?" She raised an eyebrow,

"You have GOT to be kidding me."

"Think about it for a second, will you? It's not all that hard to figure out. Tokuba, Kabuto. Just rearrange the letters, they're the same." She stared at him, shocked. Why hadn't she seen it earlier? Confused beyond all reason, Autumn turned and flung the door open before running out into the hall. Kabuto took a step back and looked at the place where the girl once stood before reverting his appearance back to normal.

"This…. Is going to take a while."

Autumn ran into the main hall, slipped, and tumbled down the stairs. Landing on the ground floor, she blinked, pushing all of the confusion into the back of her mind and looked up when she felt the lighting suddenly change.

"So you've finally decided to join us." Due to the fact that she was already confused about Kabuto and everything that was going on, nothing really surprised Autumn anymore. Especially finding herself face to face with Orochimaru. Yeah, actually that was expected.

"Making yourselves at home, I see." She murmured, peaking around the man before her to see a few sound nin sitting on the couch.

"It was our home first, Aki-chan." Kabuto said, appearing at the top of the stairs. Autumn looked back at him from her position on the ground. She was lying with her back on the wooden floor while her legs were sprawled on the red carpeting that went up the stairs. For the first time since the fight, Autumn examined herself. She was wearing a red tank top, which, Autumn could've sworn used to be a T-shirt with several slashes all over it as well as holes, and her jeans were practically torn to shreds. All in all, she looked as if she had been thrown into a blender.

"I'm sorry, but you seem to be under the misconception that I actually care." She said, not bother to get up as Kabuto walked the stairs to join the little party. Orochimaru chuckled, causing the girl to shiver. The blinds were drawn and most of the windows were closed. The lights were off and the only sources of illumination were the lit candles scattered about the area. Noticing the amusement flickering in Orochimaru's eyes in the light of the flame of a nearby candle, Autumn turned herself around so she could look at him properly. Sitting on the last few steps, she looked up at the two before her, a bored expression on her face.

"What do you want?"

"Just your cooperation," Orochimaru answered. "I assume by the way you're constantly looking at Kabuto, he told you his 'secret' did he not?"

"He did." The snake man grinned,

"Well then, what do you say? Will you side with your brother, the only family you seem to have left?" Autumn rested her head on her hand and pretended to think about if for a second,

"Maybe… Question?" He nodded, encouraging her to ask, "Why aren't you dead by now?"

"Blunt, aren't you?" Kabuto asked, obviously unhappy with her tone.

"Oh shut it, Point-dexter. I don't care if you're my brother or not, I still hate you for who you really are." Before he could respond, Orochimaru motioned to one of the sound nin sitting on the couch who was coughing violently. He nodded and went to tend to him,

"It's simple," he began, "the very same reason why Sasori is alive as well."

"Which is?"

"The same way you bring people into your world, you bring people back to the world of the living."

"Joy. I suppose that's why they're alive as well?" She muttered, referring to the sound five, whom she realized were the ninja sitting in her living room. He nodded in confirmation and held his hand out to her,

"Well then?" She rolled her eyes and was just about to decline when she felt a little pull in the back of her mind.

_**'You work for whomever's possession you're in, remember?' **_Akiko.

_'Oh, so you're awake._

_**'You don't sound very happy to hear me!' **_Akiko pouted,

_'I'm not.'_

_**'Meanie!'**_

_'Deal with it.' _She took his hand reluctantly. it sucks when your annoying alter ego can be right sometimes. If her new resolution included working with Orochimaru, well then, although she hated it, she'd have to accept it. Orochimaru grinned and helped the girl up. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he guided her over to the circle of sound nin that had formed during their conversation. Autumn kept her face emotionless as she found herself confronted with more 'enemy' ninja.

"You all owe your lives to this girl, so I don't need to say that I expect you to act respectful, now do I?" A small murmur went though the few nin. "Good."

"Do I get to keep my room?" Autumn interrupted before he could begin speaking again. He looked down at her,

"If you're good, I'll think about it." He responded, going back to what he was saying previously.

_'What am I, a puppy?'_ Orochimaru walked away before she could say it out loud, leaving her alone with Kabuto and the Sound Five, all of whom were staring at her.

_'Crap.'_

"Uh… Hi?" She could feel them all looking her over,

"She doesn't look like she holds any kind of power, what's so special about her?" A very… large man said, not seeming to care. Jirobo. Autumn twitched,

"He's right, she looks like every other little piece of shit on this planet," Kidomaru this time, crossing his arms. Autumn twitched again,

"She brought you all and Orochimaru-sama back from the dead. She deserves a little credit." Kabuto lectured, walking away. With their last superior out of the way, the original Sound Four made their way around the girl, examining her carefully. They had learned not to underestimate people after last time. Autumn twitched once again, though, she was somewhat relieved that Tayuya was keeping her mouth shut, though she would've preferred Tayuya's mouth to what happened next. Autumn felt an arm snake around her neck, the kunai in its hand barely grazing her skin, then she felt another hand reach downward and squeeze her butt. Her eyes widened in surprise before she burst. Sakon and Ukon, who had been culprit, swiftly moved backward as Autumn released a large amount of chakra, hoping to burn him. She turned to face him, fire in her eyes.

"Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again." She said, dangerously. She ran at him and he jumped out of the way. Raising her hands, the candlelight revealed chakra strings that had formed a net above him. She had been weaving that the whole time Orochimaru had been talking, she just now found a good way to use it. Bringing the net down on the twins, she trapped them and used her chakra to electrify the net, giving them quite a "shocking" surprise. Her eyes turned to slits as she could feel the urge for revenge well up inside of her. A sadistic smile found its way on her face as she took a step toward the fused twins, but she froze, feeling a kunai to her throat.

"Aki-chan, stop it."

_**'Damn it Kabuto-kun! Just when this was getting good!**_

_'Shut up.'_

"I'm not going to kill him. Just hurt him… a lot." She heard him sigh as he lowered the kunai and turned her to face him,

"Orochimaru-sama wishes to have a word with you."

_'He can keep wishing then.'_

"Fine." The net disappeared and she turned to take another look at the twins, "This isn't over." She stated, letting Kabuto push her in the direction of the stairs to the library. As long as Orochi-baka didn't punish her like Pein did, she was okay. Seriously, maybe this wasn't going to be all that bad. Who could say? As soon as she left, Kabuto turned to the, now toasted, twins,

"You just had to go and make her angry." He said, reluctantly following his "sister" up the stairs. This wasn't going to end well.

* * *

**_I hope you liked it! It's longer than usual, to try and make up for the time, once again, sorry! _**

**_Review please!_**


	13. Autumn in Wonderland

**_Yellowz. Longer chappie. I won't be updating much, life seems so busy now... Can you believe it's already been a year since I started this? It took me only six months to complete "But, Why Me!!!" Geez... I'm getting slower._**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own. _**

* * *

Autumn stormed up the stairs and into the library. She was quite clearly pissed off.

"I take it you got into a fight, Hime?" Orochimaru asked, looking up from a few papers he'd been checking.

"What was your first clue?" She retorted, her "killing aura" becoming more dangerous by the second.

"Autumn…" Kabuto warned, not pleased by her tone.

"Oh shut up. And where the hell were you when it happened anyway? Brilliant idea, leaving me on my own to deal with them. I can already tell they don't like me. I thought you were supposed to be protecting me, or was that all an act as well? If so, Akiko's going to have a lot to say-"

_**'Damn straight!'**_

"-later!"

_**'Aww…' **_Orochimaru, amused by her ranting, stood and strode over to her side. Gently cupping her chin, he pushed her face upward so she was looking at him. Her sharingan was activated, and three tomoe rotated angrily in each of her eyes.

"_My dear, sweet Hime, whatever did they do to you?" _He purred, causing her breath to catch in her throat. Autumn didn't know whether to gag in disgust or melt away at the sound of his voice. Instead, she settled on letting her left eye twitch as it usually did when something awkward happened. Orochimaru kneeled down to her level and gently stroked her cheek, calming her down. "Tell me what happened."

"Sakon…" She suddenly found her mouth was dry and all of her control was lost within the snake man's golden eyes.

"Yes?"

"He… He touched me…" Catching the sinister meaning behind those seemingly innocent words, Orochimaru looked over at Kabuto,

"Is he still alive?" He asked,

"I stopped her before she could cause any major damage, but he may have some… "problems" later. She gave him quite a shock." The snake man nodded, dismissing his assistant and turned his attention back to the girl in front of him. All traces of her sharingan had disappeared, leaving bright emerald eyes to stare at him in curiosity. Standing, he guided her to a chair before he began to speak,

"You've done very well so far, Akiko." Mentally, she scoffed at the name, while her alter ego, cheered. "But hear me, do not attempt to escape again. I've been here and I know my way around. Granted, not as well as you do, but I do know about the tunnels, and am prepared to smoke you out if you think of that as a safe place to hide." He kneeled in front of her and lightly rested his hand on her head, "I promise you I will not be harsh and I will not raise my voice at you unless given proper reason, but like it or not, you're going to have to trust me and listen to my orders, understand?" She nodded,

"Good, now Kabuto's been telling me of how you seemingly have something up your sleeve. Care to share?" Briefly, her eyes flashed to their natural brown and then to her sharingan's red before returning to Akiko's green.

"Now isn't the right time for that…" She murmured quietly, turning her head as not to look at him. She expected him to be angry with her, and after her confrontation with the Akatsuki, she didn't want to deal with that again. But instead, she heard him give a slight chuckle and remove his hand from her hair,

"There's a time for everything. As long as it won't harm my goals, it's alright."

"It won't…" She murmured,

"Good. You seem upset, what's on your mind? It can't be those troublesome twins again, can it? You seemed to get more than enough revenge." He helped her from her seat,

"No… It's nothing…"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah… It's just… Otou-sama won't be too happy with me when he comes back."

"Otou-sama? Is that what you're calling Pein now?" He asked, amused.

"Hey! He adopted me!" Was it just her, or did her voice sound higher now? She looked up at Orochimaru and realized that there was a two-foot gap between their heights, what was going on?

"Well you're in my custody now, so you may call me that if you like." She raised an eyebrow,

"Sure… Why am I so short?" She asked not really caring about the previous topic. Orochimaru produced a mirror from god-knows-where and showed the girl her own reflection,

"Holy crap, why am I five!?!" He laughed,

"Because that's the age Akiko is."

"So I turn into a five year old?" She was confused, but Orochi just kept laughing.

"Try not to worry about it, you'll turn back eventually." He picked her up and carried her out of the room, back down the stairs, and over to the remaining Sound nin. Kabuto glanced at them from his place healing Sakon and Ukon when he realized what had happened and paused. Kidomaru raised an eyebrow,

"What's with the kid?"

"Don't make me kick your ass too." Autumn said, her aura flaring.

"Language." Both Orochimaru and Kabuto warned her, she just grumbled and turned her back on the sound nin, burying her face in Orochimaru's shoulder.

"Kabuto." Said grey haired ninja stepped over his "patient" and took Autumn in his arms. "Look after her this time and make sure nothing like that happens again." Kabuto nodded and looked at Autumn and smiled,

"It's been awhile since I've seen you this small."

"Shut up, Tokuba!" She cried, instantly covering her mouth. Kabuto ignored the stares of the other sound nin and sat down on a couch. Gently removing her hands from her mouth, he grinned.

"It's okay, you're free to call me that whenever you like. We'll be the family we didn't have a chance to be." Autumn, in her five year-old state couldn't help but squeal happily and wrap her small arms around his neck in a hug. Kabuto returned the gesture and took the opportunity to glare at the other sound nin,

"And as for the rest of you, please leave her alone. She's more than willing to kill off anyone who attempts to break apart our little family, aren't you, Akiko-chan?" The little girl released him and turned to give the remaining sound nin an evil smile. Autumn and Akiko had merged into one little demon child.

"Of course, Aniki." Kimmimaru, lying on the opposite couch, looked over at the two. Autumn's right eye had remained green while her left had switched back to brown. Both eyes flickered as the two persona's battled for dominance. The white haired man sat up and approached the small girl in Kabuto's lap. He looked at her, curiously. Autumn's half took over briefly and gave him a sincere smile. Autumn had always felt sorry for Kimmimaru. He was a good person, just misguided.

Kimmimaru remained impassive but nodded all the same. So this was the girl Orochimaru had chosen.

"Kimmimaru-san, would you like to hold her? I need to finish tending to the twins." He gave a silent nod and took Autumn from Kabuto. The small girl giggled,

"I like you." She said, happily. They heard Kabuto sigh in relief,

"Could you take her up to her room? Seventh floor." He nodded again and walked away.

* * *

About half way up the stairs, Autumn's body suddenly froze. She stopped breathing and she fell limp. Kimmimaru stepped onto the next floor before laying her down. Seconds later, she gasped. Both of her eyes had a golden tinge to them, slowly turning into a rich brown.

'_**I'm tired.'**_

'_Finally! You're such a baby.'_

'_**I can't help it. We're cuter as a child.'**_

'_You took control of me!'_

'_**Not true! You didn't notice, but Orochimaru-sama activated your cursed seal.'**_

'_And turned me into a child?'_

'_**And let me take control. He likes me better.'**_

'_That's funny, because that still means you took control.'_

'_**But-!'**_

'_It doesn't matter! We had a deal! Only when fighting!'_

'_**It's not my fault you make it so easy.' **_Autumn took the opportunity to imagine Akiko hanging over a pit filled with alligators. To her delight, she heard her counterpart scream. Sitting up, she smiled up at Kimmimaru.

"Hello." She said cheerily. Said white-haired man raised and eyebrow.

"Konnichiwa." He spoke, his voice monotone. Autumn stood and promptly began to continue her journey up the stairs, Kimmimaru following silently.

Autumn was the first to reach the seventh floor. She opened the door to her room quickly; wanting to see the damage Akiko did firsthand. As soon as she did, she slammed the door faster than she had opened it.

'_Oh you are so dead.' _She growled in her head. Akiko giggled but otherwise kept silent, fearing what other torture her primary half could enact.

"Is something the matter?" Kimmimaru asked quietly, finally reaching the top of the stairs. Autumn gave a nervous laugh,

"Not really… No… Yes… Maybe…" He raised an eyebrow,

"What is it?"

"Here, take a look at this." She opened her door, revealing the swirling pink vortex that lead into Akiko's twisted world. "Does this look normal to you?"

"I'll fetch Orochimaru-sama." He said, disappearing. Autumn sighed,

'_I hate you soooooo much right now.'_

'_**Love you too.'**_

'_Whore.'_

'_**Bitch.'**_

'_Slut.'_

'_**Skank.'**_

'… _Prep.'_

'… _**Was that supposed to be an insult?'**_

_'I… don't really know…'_

'_**Wow. You seriously fail at life.'**_

'_Have you forgotten that you live in __**my**__ mind?'_

'_**No. I'm just saying. You fail as an other.'**_

'_And you fail at trying to imitate Kingdom Hearts.'_

'_**Oh, so you've noticed.'**_

'_KAIRI'S LINE!!!! FIRST GAME!!!!'_

'_**Meh.' **_The image of Akiko sticking her tongue out at her "partner" appeared in the girl's mind. As a response, Autumn conjured the image of the alligator pit once again. Satisfied with Akiko's screams of terror, the young girl returned to the issue of her room.

"Problem?" She heard Kabuto's voice come from behind her,

"Can't you tell? Last time I checked, my room wasn't supposed to be a giant, girly, pink, swirling vortex of DOOM!" She complained.

"… Have you tried going in?" She turned to glare at him,

"Does it look like I even want to?" Kabuto shrugged,

"You used to like pink. It was your favorite color."

"Mention the past again, and I will kill you."

"Would you really murder your-"

"Don't say it." Autumn pointed a kunai at his throat,

"Fine, fine. But I don't see a better way to solve this rather than going inside." She continued to glare, but couldn't deny the fact that he was right. So, as to solve this problem, she took hold of his arm and threw him inside the swirly vortex first. After waiting a minute and hearing no screams, she deemed it safe enough to enter. As soon as she did, what she saw made her wish she had her camera. They had appeared in a cave, and Kabuto was attached to the ceiling, surrounded by several hundred Kabuto (pokemon).

"How's the weather up there, _brother_?" She joked,

"This isn't funny. Now get me down from here!"

"Actually, it's very funny, and I'd rather leave you up there. You make the perfect decoration!" She squealed as Akiko began to take over once again,

'No. Back, evil alter ego!'

'_**But-!'**_

'_Don't make me get the alligators.'_

'…' The most damage done was Autumn's eyes had changed again, but that was it. Soon, the girl had found her way out of the cave and into a small garden. Several weeds littered the flowerbed and a weed whacker leaned against a random tree.

"What the-?" She was cut off by several screams of terror,

"_PLEASE DON'T HURT US!!!!" _She turned her head and looked at a nearby flowerbed. Surrounded by weeds, a giant venus flytrap stood.

"… Zetsu?" She asked, uncertainly. His leaves were yellowing and the plant around his head was barely open.

"**Get away from us!" **He cried, struggling against the packed dirt around him.

"Zetsu, I'm not going to hurt you, what's wrong?"

"_Can't… _**Move…**" Both sides groaned. He must've been there for days…

"Zetsu, you're a ninja. Pull yourself out or use a jutsu or something." She touched the ground, attempting to dig and help him, but after she did, some sort of realization hit him and he pulled himself out. The weeds surrounding him clung to him, the roots tied around his limbs. He shook himself and they fell off.

"_What happened?" _His white half asked as his venus flytrap opened to let in the sunlight.

"Zetsu-san!!!" She heard another voice squeal. A black, red, and orange blur sped past her and glomped the plant man.

"T-Tobi?" She asked, taken aback. _'Geez, who else is here?'_

"Tobi is a good boy!" He chirped. Zetsu pushed him off and let him fall to the ground.

"**Don't be such a pest." **His darker half growled. He then turned back to Autumn, "**Go find Pein. **_He should be somewhere around here as well._" The girl froze then slowly backed away. "_What are you waiting for? __**Go!"**_ Both halves chorused.

"H-hai!" She squeaked, turning and running away. This was just getting weird. She ran down a path and stopped once she figured that she was far enough away from the plant man.

"Weird…" She murmured to herself. Why was there a forest in her bedroom? Let alone a cave and a garden. Nonetheless, she continued down the path. "Hello?" She called out, searching for any sign of life. Twice she could've sworn something moved, but she ignored it. Her ninja senses were screaming for her to stop and check it out, but her normal girl senses were telling her to continue to act naïve and leave it alone. Of course, she was a girl before she was a ninja, so she listened to those senses, no matter how much common sense they lacked.

Autumn walked until she reached what looked to be a giant mushroom. On top of that mushroom sat a giant caterpillar, or so it appeared. Autumn couldn't see its face, but she could make out that it was counting money…

"Kakuzu?" At the mention of his name, the caterpillar paused and removed the hookah, as he was apparently smoking, from his mouth and looked at her.

"Who are _you?_" He asked, in a tired voice. Autumn twitched, he wasn't Pein, no point in even talking to him. Not once as she walked away did the thought cross her mind to ask him for directions.

* * *

After ten minutes of hearing movement in the bushes, Autumn finally decided to kick her normal girl senses to the curb and use her ninja skills to find out what the crap was going on.

"Who's there?" She questioned, scanning the area. Something in the bushes moved… again, before something finally came out. Some kind of creature leaped from the bushes, landing on Autumn's chest and successfully knocking her to the ground.

"Ah!" She screamed. "Get off of me!" Whatever it was, when she went to grab for it, her hand was met with soft fur, the surprise causing her to loose her grip and let it go.

"I'm late!" It squealed, scampering off. When she finally sat up to get a good look at it, it was halfway down the road, but what she did notice was… It was a weasel?

"…. Itachi?" She questioned, watching it run off.

"Maybe it would be wise to follow instead of just sitting there, girl." A voice hissed. She turned to look over in a tree, wrapped around a branch was a snake… Normally, that wouldn't be odd since she was used to weird things like talking snakes, except for the fact that it was smiling at her and it had a striking resemblance to Orochimaru, making her want to kill it and send it to China where they could make snake soup from it. As soon as she blinked, it was gone. All the same, she decided to follow its advice. Standing, she dusted off her clothes and began to pursue the animal with a single thought in her head,

'What is this? Some king of Alice in Wonderland parody gone wrong?'

She continued to follow the strange animal into a random plaza that just so happened to show up and she lost it. Slowing to a halt, she looked around the place. Clocks lined the walls, all beginning to chime as they struck three o'clock.

"No vacancy, un." She heard a resounding male voice speak out from the center of the room. Several tables, all empty, littered the room.

"You heard him, bitch. No room." She knew two people who would curse like that, and one of them wasn't a guy so it could only be…

"Hidan?"

"We said there was no room for you, un." Deidara… Yep, Alice in Wonderland parody. Hidan was wearing a ridiculous pair of bunny ears and Deidara's hair was down with a nice top hat on his head. Both were dressed very well, though the akatsuki's customary red clouds still littered their clothing. Being the stubborn little girl she was, Autumn took a seat across from the two, finally noticing a third between them. A tuft of red hair was all that she could really make out of the actual person rather than the costume and mouse ears, but she just assumed… Not even bothering to match the name, she broke out laughing. Sasori, the unsuspecting dormouse, was already quite annoyed with the costume, but the laughing girl across from him made it worse. As not to ruin his own "slumber", he kicked her under the table instead.

"Ow! Sasori, that freakin hurt!!!" She squealed. Even though his face was hidden, she could almost feel the satisfied smirk on his face as he mentally laughed at her pain.

"Serves you right, b-!"

"Finish that sentence, Hidan, and you will regret it." He rolled his eyes,

"I'm not "Hidan", bitch, I'm the March Hare." Now it was Autumn's turn to roll her eyes,

"Or course, or course, and Deidara over here is the Mad Hatter, and Sasori-baka is the Dormouse." She said, getting the point. "What is this? Some kind of bad fanfic?"

"…"

"…"

"Zzzz…"

"…"

"What's a fanfic, un?" Autumn groaned,

"Never mind. I'm outta here." She stood from her place at the table and began to walk away. "Trial, right? The queen wants to execute someone, right?" She called over her shoulder, exiting the room. The men just stared after her, even Sasori had "woken up" and looked over in her direction.

"Even here, un…"

"Little bitch is still just as cocky as ever."

"Even now, after all she's been through, the brat's spirit hasn't been broken…" Sasori spoke, trailing off. "It looks like I'll have to try harder."

"I'm with ya." They both looked at Deidara,

"Uh… no thanks, un."

"Wuss."

"Brat."

* * *

"My, my, little girl, you've seemed to have gotten yourself away from the storyline, haven't you?" A voice hissed, seeming to follow Autumn as she continued to walk.

"Not in the mood, Orochimaru. Unless you can tell me something useful, like where the queen's castle is, or who's on trial, I don't really care." The snake didn't respond and instead turned away from her.

"Exactly." She muttered, continuing on her way. In no time she reached her destination, apparently a bit late though.

"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" Or was she early? She really didn't know anymore. She walked into the room just as that famous line resounded throughout the hall. Seeing who was on trial, and apparently convicted as guilty, made the girl want to laugh out loud. Then again, the fact that Pein was wearing a dress made her actually do it.

"What's so funny girl?" The "king" spoke this time. It was painfully obvious it was Konan. Clearing her throat and silencing any giggles that tried to escape, Autumn struggled to speak clearly, let alone, formally.

"G-gomenasi, Otou-sama, Okaa-sama…" She murmured just loud enough to be heard, "but I find it funny that the one who had done me wrong as of late is the one convicted. Tell me, what crime has he committed?" She asked, laughter hidden in voice. Pein stood, but was hesitant to answer,

"Well?"

"… For the crime of touching my daughter in a way that I do not approve of." Autumn grinned,

"Aww, you do care!" She burst out laughing. Once she calmed down, she glanced at Sakon and Ukon before continuing. They were wearing a dress too!

'_This is interesting, but mind if we…?'_

'_**Of course. Seeing as you're enjoying this, it's becoming a bit boring.' **_Autumn approached the "queen".

"Tou-san, can we go home now? It's kind of weird having you guys in my room like this…" Pein nodded and held his hand out to her. Autumn gave a sad smile and took his hand before being pulled into a pleasant embrace.

"I never wished to harm you…" He whispered, and she understood. In truth, she had never felt the actual pain… Akiko had… He was attempting to tame her other half…

The room flashed brightly before the light dimmed. Autumn felt Pein move his hand to her head and she looked up at him. He gave her the smallest of smiles before releasing her. She turned to look at the multitude of criminals in her room. Everything had returned to normal. She smiled brightly before frowning,

"Okay, first question's first. What the hell are all of you doing in my room, anyway?"

* * *

And that's all for now... Maybe a while... Ah well. Ja ne!

Review please!


	14. Le crap filler chappie of DOOM!

***hides behind Orochimaru* hehehehe.... It's been quite a while, hasn't it? Sorry. School and crap. Lame excuse, I know, but it's the only one I've got. Sorry for this crap chapter, but I'm just here to let ya know I'm still alive a kickin!**

**Disclaimer: Do I really need to put this here? I mean it's kinda obvious I don't own Naruto.**

* * *

It took one heck of a lot of explaining, but eventually, Autumn got the point. Apparently Akiko's wormhole or swirly pink vortex of doom had messed with Autumn's ability to send people between worlds, instead erecting some kind of space, loop hole, limbo type thingy. As for the sound nins, they were just in there because Orochimaru made them go in after Autumn and Kabuto. Yes, all was resolved until Tobi brought up a very stressful question.

"Ne, Aki-chan, who's side are you on?"

'_Ho shit.'_

"What do you mean?" Tobi tilted his head to one side and explained,

"Are you on Orochimru's side or ours?" All eyes were on her.

"Does it really matter at this point in time?"

Orochimaru spoke up,

"It's essential to know where your loyalties lie." Something about the grin on his face told Autumn that he just wanted to rub it in the akatsuki's faces if she picked him like they all knew Akiko would if she were in control, but luckily, she wasn't.

'_**Pick Orochimaru! Pick Orochimaru!!!!' **_Akiko pleaded,

'_Hell to the no. Not now, not ever.'_

'_**But what about your resolution???'**_

'_Does it really look like I care anymore?'_

'… _**no…'**_

'_Exactly.'_

"Are you sure you guys are really ninjas?" Autumn asked, inspecting her nails. "Because I'm pretty sure the whole 'moment' we had twenty minutes ago should've made my choice obvious." Orochimaru's grin turned sadistic as he strode over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder,

"I guess that's rather unfortunate my dear because you see, I refuse to give you up again without a fight." The akatsuki members immediately took a fighting stance, ready to battle it out for the little girl. Instead of looking worried, Autumn picked up the sanin's hand and removed it from her shoulder.

"You had a fight last time, actually, if I recall, it was me against your pet nerd." Quickly enough, the hand was replaced with a kunai pointing at her neck.

"I'd advise you to reconsider."

"Tch. Give it up old man. I've made my decision." It was Kabuto's turn to speak,

"Aki, would you really give up your family? The people that care for you?" Autumn gagged.

"What are you talking about? I'm nothing more than an experiment to you! I have people who care for me and I consider them my family and- Aw crap…" Somewhere during her riteous moment, the cursed seal activated and she had shrunk back to her five-year-old form. Seeing the majority of the people around her now either staring at her in wonder or laughing at her current state, Autumn sighed and gave up.

"You know what? Fine. Fight over me, I don't care anymore. Just don't do it in my house." She grumbled, stomping over to Hidan who was currently laughing like an overcaffinated hyena. Staring up at the albino until she had his attention, she promptly pulled her fist back, infused it with chakra, and punched him in the crotch, smiling pleasantly as he fell to the ground and curled into a ball.

"FUCK YOU BITCH!!!!!!!!" He cried out like a banshee. Autumn pulled a chakra infused foot back and kicked him in the spine as hard as she could.

"SCREW YOU WITH A RAKE HIDAN!!!!!!" She screamed, kicking him repeatedly. Everyone in the room excluding Zetsu, Itachi, Kakuzu, Kimmimaru, and Orochimaru had a look of disbelief on their faces as this _child_ proceeded to beat the crap out of an S-class criminal. Pein quickly regained his composure save for a small twitch in his left eye before turning to Orochimaru,

"What did you do to her?" Orochimaru shrugged and gestured to the bandaged and still in a dress Sakon and Ukon,

"They got into a fight."

"Damn… I knew she was gonna snap eventually." Kisame commented, listening to Hidan spew enough profanity that would make a sailor blush.

"… Should we… Help him, un?"

"Nah. If he's getting beat up by a five year old, then I'm pretty sure he deserve every second of it." Kakuzu answered, enjoying the show.

Autumn finished up with one good kick to the head before turning on her heel and storming out of the room. Konan shook her head,

"We're signing her up for anger management."

"DAMN RIGHT YOU WILL!" Screamed the bloody mess on the floor that was Hidan, thus earning him a glare from Pein and a kick to the stomach by Kakuzu.

"FUCKING BASTARD!!!!"

* * *

Mini-Autumn had since made her way down to the third floor and was busy pouting on the stairs. Inside, she was once again battling Akiko for dominance of her own body.

'_**I wanna go with Orochimaru!!!' **_Akiko whined,

'_My body, my choice. I like staying with Tou-san.'_

'_**But he hit us!'**_

'_He hit __you__.'_

'_**But you felt it too!'**_

'_Yeah, but I got over it.'_

'_**I bet Orochimaru would never do something like that to us.'**_

'_He already did. The cursed seal was way worse, and I say that because, look who came with it.'_

'_**That's mean! If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!'**_

'_I technically didn't say anything. I thought it.'_

'_**Why don't you go jump in a lake?'**_

'_Because I don't feel like leaving the house.'_

'_**Grrrrr……'**_

'_I'm a lion, hear me roar…. Meow.'_

'_**GRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANNA KILL YOU!!!!!' **_

'_That's too bad, ain't it?' _Autumn giggled to herself for a second until she felt two strong arms wrap around her torso. She squealed as she was lifted in the air and struggled to turn and see who it was_._ One of the arms moved and a hand gently sat itself upon her head. Autumn twisted her body to get a look at the face of her captor and grinned when she saw Kimmimaru. Ceasing her struggles, Autumn settled for playfully kicking her feet in the air as the man holding her turned around. In front of them now was Itachi who looked impassive as ever.

"Chichi-nii!" She cried happily. Geez, being five again was really started to affect her brain. Itachi paid no mind to his nickname but focused on Kimmimaru, a silent warning passing between them. Suddenly Kimmimaru turned away and began walking down the stairs, still holding the girl by her waist.

"Where're we going?" Autumn asked, looked up at him. At first, Kimmimaru didn't respond, but then,

"It's lunch time." She blinked and then nodded, suddenly conscious of the emptiness of her stomach. She hadn't had breakfast either, had she? After a moment of awkward silence Autumn spoke,

"Food is good." Kimmimaru raised and eyebrow but nodded all the same.

"Yes it is." Reaching the first floor, Kimmimaru gently set Autumn on the ground and watched with hidden amusement as she scurried off toward the kitchen. What a strange little girl.

* * *

**And so ends this bit of crap. Review if you like, as usual, I'll often respond if I care to~ that's just how the world works. **

**Ja ne~!**


	15. Half fillerhalf plot!

**_The end of this chappie gets a little random. I serioiusly just wrote random stuff._**

**_Disclaimer: I dun own._**

_

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_

_It's peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time!_

Music blared from the kitchen as Autumn turned her iPod's speaker up to full power. The little girl jumped up to one of the cabinets, flicking it open, and then jumping again to retrieve a jar of peanut butter. Autumn placed her peanut butter next to its partners in crime, cinnamon bread and jelly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kimmimaru walk into the room, glaring at her iPod. Geez, did no one in Naruto-land like music?

"Kimmi-nii wanna sammich?" She asked, innocently looking up at him in an attempt to divert his attention from her iPod. Her plan worked and the white-haired man momentarily forgot about the noise assaulting his eardrums and paid attention to the cute, pouting child in front of him. He nodded slightly and the girl offered to him a plate with a freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich on it. Taking the plate from her warily, he watched the girl run to the refrigerator to grab some chocolate milk and then pour it into a glass and offer it to him. Of course he took the milk without any hesitation, and sat down at the kitchen table. Only then did he remember the horrible sound that was being emitted from the speakers and did he continue to glare at them. Autumn sighed and turned her iPod off, smiling as Kimmimaru nodded his thanks. She watched as Kimmimaru took a bite into his sandwich and chewed slowly, unaccustomed to the taste. Suddenly, he looked as if he had an epiphany. This sandwich was amazing! He took a sip of milk and closed his eyes in satisfaction of how well the chocolate complemented the peanutty taste. He was in heaven. Meanwhile, Autumn stared at him in complete wonder at what was going through this man's mind.

_**'Maybe he's finally fallen in love?' **_Akiko suggested, just as confused as her counterpart.

_'With a sandwich?' _Autumn questioned, skeptically.

_**'Love knows no bounds. That's why Cupid is painted blind.'**_

_'…So… what? Is he gonna marry the sandwich or something?'_

_**'Maybe. And then they'll have little sandwich children!' **_Autumn visibly rolled her eyes and continued to stare at Kimmimaru who was still savoring his sandwich.

"Nii-san? Nii-san?? … Niiiiiiiiiiii-saaaaaaan!!! … Kimmimaru-kun! Wake up!" Kimmimaru heard his name being called but he was too far gone to recognize the voice. This taste was incredible!

_'Kimmimaaaaaauuuuuu~~~!'_

His precious was calling to him! In his mind, he was skipping in a field of strawberries heading toward the sweet voice. He ran to the giant sandwich in slow motion and hugged it, burying his face in the soft cinnamon slices. The sandwich held him close before pulling its hand back and…

**BANG!!!**

His head met the table.

"Oops…" Autumn muttered, thinking she hit him a bit 'too' hard. She poked his cheek a few times and gasped as he seized her finger. Kimmimaru came back to his senses and stared at the offending extremity that had ruined his affair.

"Nii-san, can I have my finger back?" Kimmimaru turned to look at a slightly taller, now seven-year-old Autumn. He released her finger and looked at her.

"What did-?"

"Before you ask, no, I didn't do anything to your sandwich." She said, closing the cabinets and turning to leave the kitchen. "I'm just gonna go see what Tachi-nii's doing, kay?"

Kimmimaru nodded, absentmindedly staring at the sandwich in his hand. What a curious place this world of hers was, he thought, taking another bite if his sandwich.

Autumn made her way from the kitchen to the third floor where she had a feeling the negotiations were taking place. She pushed a door open that lead to a back room where she felt her Tou-san's chakra radiating from. At once, all talking that had previously been raging ceased as she stepped into the dimly lit room.

"What is it Autumn?" Pein asked, his rinnegan clearly visible in the flickering candlelight.

Ever blunt, Autumn spoke,

"Tou-san, I think Kimmimaru-san is going to elope with his sandwich." This statement caused everyone present in the room to raise an eyebrow.

"His… Sandwich?" Kabuto inquired,

"Yes, pointdexter, his sandwich. Anyway, it's kinda creepy."

Pein sighed,

"And this is relevant how?"

"Relevant to what, _Tou-san_? I wasn't included in this conversation." Autumn asked, going through a growth spurt, aging to ten.

"We're discussing what we should do with Orochimaru."

"Is killing him an option?"

"No."

"Oh, then I'm out of ideas."

He shook his head,

"Autumn, I'm afraid that you're going to have to go without sleep for a few days until the moon cycle ends. We can't risk him escaping if he is transported without us."

Autumn mock saluted,

"Can do! By the way, Tou-san, school starts tomorrow, FYI."

He nodded,

"Alright then. How much longer do you have to go to school?"

This time, Kabuto answered for her,

"Until she finishes high school which will be in about another five years." He said, earning a glare for speaking out of turn. He wrapped his arms around his 'sister's shoulders and rested his head on top of hers. Everyone who cared at the moment was surprised that Autumn was allowing him to even get near her, but Kabuto had been around Autumn long enough to know that if and when she spaced out, she would give an open window for anyone to touch her for approximately two minutes without snapping. Orochimaru saw this as an opportunity to exploit.

"It's obvious that she wants to be with her family. She deserves to stay with her brother." Tobi stood up and calmly walked over in front of Autumn and waved his hand in front of her face. She made no movement.

"Aki-chan isn't moving." He said, poking her in the face. Pein raised an eyebrow.

"She does that sometimes," Kabuto said, backing away, seeing as his two minutes were up. Autumn lashed out and punched Tobi in the face (er… mask?) before kicking him in the stomach a few times.

"No touchy!" She pouted, going over to cling to Itachi.

"Itai~~~!!!" Tobi whined, jumping on Deidara. "Senpai!!! She hit me!!!!!"

"Get off, un!" Deidara shouted at the, now sobbing, Tobi. Itachi pushed Autumn away from him and she groaned, going over to him and apologizing.

"Is Tobi a good boy?" He sniffed.

"Yes, Tobi is a good boy."

He jumped on her,

"I forgive you!"

Autumn groaned once again,

"What did I do to deserve this???"

* * *

So, how'd I do?

Please tell me

and review!


	16. Le prélude à la parcelle

**Hiya! After several months and several joyus death threats, I have finally updated. REJOICE! Because this chappie, though it kinda is filler, is also a prelude to the REAL PLOT! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Anywho, summer's on its way here cuz finals start tomorrow and school ends Thursday, and break (usually) means more updates!**

**Disclaimer: You know the drill.**

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Later that night, long after Autumn had finally reverted to her true age, our poor, unfortunate, little protagonist found herself in the middle of a very heated, _glaring contest_ between Kimmimaru and Itachi. Ever since he had arrived, Kimmimaru had apparently taken a liking to Autumn, especially in her smaller forms, and thus clashing with Itachi over the rights to be in possession of said child.

"Ano, why can't you two just get along?" asked the weary teen. She was sick and tired of their fighting, and she was already anxious as it was seeing as she had school in the morning. She had yet to meet her new teachers and she was beyond nervous. After all, she had good reason to be. Would they see through her act? Would they think of her as a suck up, or would everything go as planned and they would fall for her act just like all of the others?

Now that she really thought on it, what did it matter? It was her final year at this accursed public institution, so why not have a grand revelation?

Autumn let out a long sigh seeing as she was being ignored. Akiko had decided to go to sleep just to spite her outer conscious seeing as Autumn herself couldn't.

"Ne, Tachi-nii, Kimmi-nii, although watching you two glare at each other is just so entertaining, I'm starting to get bored."

The two males in the room turned their attention to the sole female occupant, Itachi's pride swelling just a bit because she had said his name first. Autumn almost smacked herself as she saw the blank looks on their faces.

"Let me explain this to you," she said, finding a sheet of paper and a marker. "Boredom," she began, "leads to lowered brain activity." She wrote out the word 'BOREDOM' on her paper and drew an arrow leading away from the word and to a blank space where she drew a stick figure. The stick figure had a flat surface in front of it on which it was resting its head.

"Low brain activity," she continued, "leads to a relaxed state free of stress and tension." Another arrow was drawn, leading to a stick figure, lounging on a chair.

"Such a state inevitably leads to sleep," she concluded, drawing a final arrow to a stick figure lying on a bed, fast asleep. "Understand?" she asked them. Although their faces remained blank, she could tell something clicked in their minds as a spark of realization was betrayed by their eyes. Itachi and Kimmimaru glanced at one another for a second before zooming out of the room. Autumn's left eyebrow twitched, where the heck were they going? Seconds later the two returned, Itachi, with a soda in his hand, and Kimmimaru with… POCKY! The girl's eyes widened,

"Kimmimaru… Where'd you get pocky?" she asked, resisting the urge to jump him for it.

"Your brother always keeps some with him." Autumn never thought she'd say this, but THANK YOU KABUTO! An animalistic grin spread across her face as she let her control go out the window.

"POCKY!"

Kimmimaru sidestepped the crazed girl and threw the box to her. Sitting on the floor, she promptly ripped open the box and began eating. For now, Itachi accepted his defeat, but he would have his revenge.

Dawn came quickly to the trio on the seventh floor. Autumn, now hyper, bounced back and fourth around her room gathering all of the supplies she'd need for her first day of the last year of her middle school career.

"I'll be home early today. The first day is always an early release day," she explained to her onii-chans. "I can't wait to see the guys again."

Itachi and Kimmimaru each raised an eyebrow as she said "guys". They didn't know much about who she hung out with, but if there were "guys" then there would be even MORE competition for her favor! Le gasp! And thus, a plan began to form deep within the depths of our dear Itachi's mind as the cogs and wheels slowly turned considering each consequence of every single action.

Autumn, completely oblivious to what was going on inside of Itachi's mind, gave both of her nii-chans a hug before waving goodbye to the company downstairs and skipping off through the tunnels to school.

"SURPRISE GLOMP!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Autumn grinned from atop her perch, David's back, and ignored the groans coming from the flattened boy beneath her.

"Autumn!" Several voices screamed before they dog-piled on top of her. Autumn crawled from beneath her small mountain of friends and glomped her besties.

"Wassup mah peeps?" she said, giving a lop-sided grin.

"We missed you!" Janet cried, hugging her friend.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you missed me a WHOLE LOT from FIJI."

"Hey! We offered to take you too ya know!"

"I'm just messing with ya. Besides, I had a score to settle." Autumn glanced at Joey who had been watching her through the crowd of children like a hawk would its prey.

'_Creeper.'_

'_**Maybe he likes us~!'**_

'_Us? Since when was there an 'us'?'_

'_**I'm you, you're me! We are we! We are us!'**_

'…'

"Autumn?" said girl turned her head and glanced at David whom had spoken. "The bell rang."

"It did? Well then I guess we should go then." She said, heading inside before turning to look at her friends. "Hey guys, I have a feeling that this is gonna be a great year."

* * *

**As I said, the plot is on its way. *cackles evilly***

**BTW, the chapter title means "the prelude to the plot"  
**


	17. OMJPEG THE PLOT RETURNS!

**Okay, my lovely readers, I have decided to be merciful and update my story. Aren't I amazing? Anywho, before I do the disclaimer I'm going to just say this: I'LL GET TO PAIRINGS WHEN I'M GOOD AND READY. If you haven't noticed, I'm milking this story for all that it's worth. And once again, you haven't noticed already, I wait until I have at least three reviews on a chapter before I decide to update again... Or a good amount of begging... Or a subtle nudge from Phoenixofdarkness62 (Baka-chan says I'm your bitch, btw). But the point is, let me do this my way and for those who still want it, I really am considering ItachiXAutumn, but I'm also considering pairing her with Kabuto, Kimmimaru, Hidan (you'll see why later), Naruto, and Gaara (whom she will meet soon because all of my friends think Gaara is awesome and I agree) simply because of her age at the moment. I'm working on another story at the moment with another OC so expect that to take away my love from this one (if I still have any for it cuz I'm starting to run out of ideas).**

**Tangent over.**

**Disclaimer: I own Autumn. That's it.**

* * *

It was a week into the school year when Itachi made his move. It hadn't been all that hard to convince Pein that this course of action would be the best for Autumn, in fact, he agreed with it wholeheartedly, as did just about everyone else. Orochimaru had agreed to cooperate with the Akatsuki for the time being; all of his underlings were just being dragged along for the ride, except for, of course, Kimmimaru. Kimmimaru seemed to be the most willing out of them all and that was the exact reason why Itachi felt he shouldn't be involved. Usually he and Itachi weren't exactly the jealous types, but then again, that was before they met each other. The affection of a little girl was something that they both wanted to themselves, but little did the two of them know there was _another _conspirator who had set his sights on Autumn's affections.

The day that Itachi's plan was to take action was a particularly lively day in Autumn's home. Itachi, Kimmimaru, Kabuto, and Sasori had taken the liberty of going through Autumn's belongings just in case she had anything useful that she'd need later on.

"Guys, I'm home!" came their hime's voice from the first floor.

An average Wednesday. School hadn't been in session for more than two weeks and already she was bored with it. During the school day, all she could think of was training and having fun making fun of Hidan or pulling a prank on the Sound Four. School was just so… bland now. She wanted an adventure. She wanted to do something fun! She remembered a time when she was happy and content with her normal life, but as soon as she had gotten used to it…. She didn't want it anymore.

"Guys?" Her house was quiet… too quiet. Quiet wasn't a good thing especially when you're living with a bunch of ninjas. Quiet usually meant either A, they were planning something, B, they had already planned something and were waiting to attack you, or C, they were right behind you about to kill you.

Being paranoid, she glanced over her shoulder although she already felt nothing there. Even masked chakra gave off a small about of energy. She cautiously made her way up the stairs,

"Tou-san?" She dumped her schoolwork and took a peak in the third floor library.

"Autumn." Said child jumped.

"DON'T DO THAT!" She squealed, turning around. Pein was behind her. "You almost gave me a freakin heart attack!"

"Don't let your guard down," he said simply, patting her on the head.

"Tou-san, where's 'Tachi? I wanna show him the story I wrote for Composition class!"

"Autumn, I believe we need to talk." Autumn mentally groaned. Talking wasn't good. Talking was never good.

"Whatever it is, it was probably Hidan, Deidara, the twins, or anyone else in this house who has a grudge against me."

"You're not in trouble."

"Really? Good! So what is it?" Pein motioned for her to sit. Reluctantly, the young teen did as she was silently told. Pein sat across from her and lit a candle to illuminate the dark space.

"So, what did you need to tell me?" Autumn inquired eager to leave and get away from this spooky atmosphere. Pein simply stared at her as Kakuzu and Hidan revealed themselves, stepping out of the shadows behind her.

"Um… Tou-san?" He took a deep breath,

"We're moving."

"Cool, to where?"

"Ame."

"… That technically isn't moving since you had a base stationed there before, right?"

"Correct."

"Okay then, have fun. I'll just be here when you come back." Pein leaned forward in his seat,

"You don't seem to understand. It has come to my attention that your education in the schools here provide little to nothing that you will need in order to survive as an Akatsuki, so therefore we are going on embark on my original plan and send you to an academy back in our world." Autumn gaped at him for a minute before getting up and making a run for it. As planned, Hidan blocked her path and Kakuzu restrained her in midair.

"NO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL! I HAVE FRIENDS, THEY'LL WORRY, AND THEY'LL CALL THE POLICE!" Pein sighed as he watched his 'daughter' kick and scream, throwing a tantrum like any common three-year-old.

"Enough," he commanded. "You'll do as you're told, we leave tonight."


	18. OW!

**Heya, peoplz. I decided to update. Ain't that amazin?**

**Disclaimer: Dun own.**

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"It's not fair," Autumn whined pathetically, from her bed, as she watched Itachi, Kimmimaru, Kabuto, and Sasori pack her things. She was temporarily banished to her room until they were ready to leave. "I never asked to be an Akatsuki! I never asked to be a ninja! I just wanted to have some fun!" Kabuto made a motion for her to scoot over so he could sit down, so she flipped over, onto her back, as to make room for him. "Speak, Nerd."

"Akiko-chan, think of this as a great opportunity for you to become a proper shinobi," he said. "You'll be trained by the best in our world. You'll become the greatest ninja of all time! Not only that, but-!"

"Don't care." Kabuto didn't seem surprised at her response.

"What about my friends? What about school? What about Chris-!" Autumn quickly covered her mouth, but it was already too late, what had been said was said. All of the ninja in the room froze as a thick fog of tension began to fill the air.

"Your _boyfriend_?" Kabuto inquired.

"That isn't any of your business!" she snapped, sitting up.

"What's he like?"

"Why do you care?"

"Is he nice?"

"Would you stop prying?"

"Is he your type?"

"Yes, now leave me alone!"

"What does he _look like_?" Autumn growled at him,

"Why? Do _you_ want to date him?" There was a pause,

"No, I'm simply curious. Now, where does this boy live?" She rolled her eyes,

"Why, so you can kill him in his sleep?"

"No, actually, I'd prefer that he'd be awake so that I could teach him a lesson."

"Tokuba!" she squealed, trying to jump on him. Itachi caught her before she could get her hands on him and dragged her away. Kabuto got up as well, as Sasori prepared to seal the bed into a scroll, just as he had been doing with the majority of Autumn's other furniture. Autumn could do nothing but glare at the ninja in the room as Itachi set her down in a chair over in the back corner of the room. Autumn helplessly crossed her arms and pouted. Kimmimaru strolled over and gently set his hand on her head while handing her a plate with a sandwich on it and along with it, a tall glass of chocolate milk. As soon as she accepted the food, her stomach growled and she gave the silent, sound nin a small nod in appreciation as she bit into her sandwich.

"You know what?" she murmured, swallowing the bit of food in her mouth. "I just thought of something, but today was the last time I'll be able to see my friends for God-knows how long… And I haven't even had a chance to say goodbye…" Sasori rolled his eyes.

"Friends are overrated," he stated.

"What are you? An antisocial emo kid?" She spat. Sasori gave her a look that implied certain doom if she kept up her attitude. The preteen rolled her eyes and went back to her sandwich. "You know what else? This'll probably be the last peanut butter and jelly sandwich I'll have until we return," she sighed. "I will certainly miss its delicious-ness as well as how perfectly it was complimented by the rich flavor of the chocolate milk…" Kimmimaru's ears pricked and his eyes widened in horror. Just as he was about to voice his objections, Itachi intervened,

"Nice try," he said, simply. "We packed several containers of those jars of both peanut butter and jelly, mixed, for simple convenience. When that runs out, we can simply make more."

"Damn." Itachi smacked the back of her head,

"Ow! Would you back off of my language? Welcome to America!" He smacked her again. "What the hell was that one for!" A third time, harder than before. "Fuck!" A fourth. "Owwww!" Autumn crawled beneath her chair in order to protect her skull from any further assault. Grumbling something incomprehensible about brain damage, she swiped her sandwich from the plate, forgotten on the chair, and continued eat her last bit of supper in her house. "Bastard," she murmured. The chair moved, smacking her in the head. "OW! Itachi-nii! Give me a break!"

"Little girls are supposed to be polite. Act like a little girl."

"You first," she grumbled in response, this time dodging both the chair and his hand that were both aimed at her skull. The others watched the spectacle with varying interest. Kabuto watched with amusement, Kimmimaru was watching intently for an opportunity to move up to become his hime's favorite, and Sasori had long since left.

"Don't talk back."

"Bite me."

"**Autumn**." All eyes shot toward the figure of Pein in the doorway, flanked by Konan and Orochimaru. "It is time."

Autumn's eyes widened as she realized how much time she had wasted fighting instead of escaping. In a split second, she made up her mind.

The flash of light and the smoke of a bomb going off blinded and began to suffocate the unprepared ninja in the room, and this was all Autumn needed to make her grand exit. She fled to the balcony and stepped on the railing. She had yet to really understand the whole "landing" part of being a ninja, but she could do nothing but hope.

A single sheet of paper flew from inside, liberated into the outside world

And then she closed her eyes and jumped.

* * *

And then the authoress realized that adding such suspense at the end of a comic relief chapter was bull and so she decided to wrap this up properly.

* * *

Autumn prepared herself for impact, but it never came. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself being held up by Zetsu.

"Shit," she muttered, earning a smack from Zetsu's white side.

"Language."

"What are you, Itachi?" She received another smack to the head, this time from the mildly pissed off akatsuki leader. She twisted her body to look at him and cringed at the look on his face. The bomb she had thrown had been one of her own invention. She was desperately hoping that Pein wouldn't look in the mirror anytime soon because the way the blush and minerals in the bomb had settled reminded her of one pissed off clown.

_Fuck._


	19. I'm Gonna Die

After her last stunt, dear Autumn was forcefully dragged, bound and gagged, into the basement where her fate would be sealed. Zetsu was holding onto Autumn by her binds while the remaining Akatsuki and Sound nin assembled themselves.

Pein was the last to enter the room, and as soon as he did, the once solemn attitude took a 180.

"BWAHAHAHAHA!" Hidan was to first to crack, soon followed by Kisame, Deidara, and Tobi. Pein glared at the three.

"And what is so funny?"

"Your fucking face!"

Someone handed Pein a mirror and his expression grew even graver if possible. He left the room for a moment to clean off his face and returned with a deep scowl implanted on his lips. Autumn squirmed frantically in her binds as her father's cold stare fell on her. She gave a small squeal of distress and squirmed out of the plant-man's grip so she could hide behind him.

"Oh you're dead now, bitch!" Hidan laughed, and for once, Autumn fully agreed with him. Pein looked beyond furious. So much so, that Autumn could just imagine the flames licking athe his gray-ringed eyes. She shuddered. It frightened her just to think about it let alone look at him. She was almost begging for Orochimarut o kidnap her at this point. Almost. Anything that Pein was going to do to her at this point in time was still better than being back in that snake-man's clutches again.

"You dare make a fool out of me, child?" Autumn gulped. Slowly, Pein's deep scowl morphed into a sinister sneer. "Lucky for you, Orochimaru and I have recently come to a compromise. In return for his results, we have agreed to allow him to experiment on your chakra."

Autumn's face grew pale and her eyes widened. Oh that just wasn't fair.

"But Leader-sama, did you not tell us that she was to be attending the academy in Ame?"

"It's not like you to question me, Itachi. For your information, things change. There is nothing at the academy that we cannot or have not already taught to her. Surely you've noticed how much her skills have impoved since we first arrived in this world? For now, she shall reside with Orochimaru." Around the room, there were varying reactions. Hidan and Deidara continued their laughter while Tobi settled for smirking behind his mask. Itachi had a _very mild _expression of horror etched into his features while Kimmimaru, on the other hand, had the exact opposite reaction. He had a _rather mild _expression of sheer glee on his face. Surely since his hime would be in his territory, he could win her favor over the Uchiha and she would be his!

Autumn struggled and cried out in protest. Zetsu ungagged her so that she could be understood.

"Are you nuts!" she squealed.

"Orochimaru is not to harm you in any way that is irrelevant to research."

"And do you know how flexible the term 'research' can be?" She received no response other than a face-splitting grin from Orochimaru. She was doomed. "He's gonna kill me!" she voiced her concerns.

"Itachi and Sasori will be sent with you. Itachi for your protection, and Sasori to oversee the research." Kimmimaru's happiness went down the drain.

"I'm going to return to you as a corpse." Autumn deadpanned.

"If you're good I'll come back and retrieve one of your game consoles."

"I love you daddy!"


	20. Second Bonus Chapter

**It's been over two years. About time I update, dontcha think? So, LET THE BONUS CHAPTER COMMENCE!**

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It was rather nice in the Naruto World. Autumn was far from Ame and could no longer see the clouds that constantly hung in the sky. She was quickly falling in love with the scenery, flowers of all kinds and colors grew as far as the eye could see, and butterflies liked to land on her nose and fingers every once in a while. She felt incredibly at peace… But of course, since I'm writing this and Autumn's happiness is one of the last things I want, Tobi, the one person in the entire universe (literally) that she had been trying to avoid, had seen it fit to go frolicking through the flowers that day, hunting for faeries.

"Aki-chaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn!" The butterflies scattered in fear as a dark shadow fell over the land. The sun hid behind the nearest cloud, which hid behind another cloud, which hid behind another cloud, which hid behind another cloud, which couldn't find another cloud to hide behind so it wet itself in fear. Autumn didn't know whether she should pretend to be nice or kick his ass. She didn't have the time to decide when he tackled her. Face met mud.

"Aki-chan, Aki-chan, Aki-chan! …. Why are you all wet?" Autumn would have responded had she not currently been eating mud. Tobi sat up, balancing himself on the small girl's back.

"Leader-sama brought back some books on SPACE! Oooh, do you think Tobi could be an astronaut? Do ya? Do ya? Tobi wants ta build a rocket ship and go to the mooooooon! Do you think it's made of cheese? Tobi likes cheese. Tobi would like some cheese right now. Does Aki-chan like cheese? Deidara-senpai doesn't like cheese. Senpai gets made whenever Tobi mentions cheese, OH how about-"

"GET OFF OF ME YOU NIMROD!" Autumn, deciding that that mud didn't taste very good, and unfortunately able to listen to Tobi's rant, used her chakra to lauch everyone's favorite weirdo off of her. Where did he go?

"I don't care." Yes you do. He went all the way to the moon! And there was much rejoicing.

"The moon? You mean in space? You mean where there is no oxygen and his head will explode?"

No. I mean the moon that has a face, is made of cheese and is currently watching you.

"What?" Autumn looked up, and sure enough, through the bleeding hole in the dying cloud that the other clouds had used as a shield, she could see the moon… and Tobi… Incredibly close… Were they moving?

"AAAAAAKKKKKIIIII-CHAAAAANNNNN! TOBI BROUGHT SOME CHEESE!" That was it.

"NO! TOBI IF YOU DARE LAND THAT MOON ON MY FACE I SWEAR I WILL TELL DADDY ON YOU AND HE WILL TAKE AWAY ALL OF YOUR CANDY AND VAPORIZE YOUR CHEESE AND GIVE ALL OF YOUR CRACK TO KAKUZU TO SELL!" For a minute, everything was silent. And then, a loud, repetitive beeping sound. The moon was backing up? Autumn's eye twitched as the moon shot back into space, killing the rest of the clouds, and the sun returned. The butterflies, happy as ever, fluttered around her and the sun dared show his face once more. The twitching got worse. She was going to go back to base, steal Tobi's candy, vaporize his cheese, and tell Kakuzu where to find all of his crack… After she took a shower. Mud caked the front half of her body, but the mud was kind of… strange. She kneeled on the ground and picked up some fresh mud, examining it thoroughly… This wasn't mud… it was chocolate? And the flowers, they were made of marshmallows? And… Wait a second...

Why wasn't her sharingan working?

"TOBIIIIIIIIIIII!"

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So yes, that really is all you're getting after two years. Sorry, but in other news, I made a Twitter, where I will alert you all of what I am currently working on and where you are free to pester me about not updating. SO, follow me (AT)StorytellerPZ

**Not PrincessZathura**, that was taken by someone else.


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